NEAL R. GROSS

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U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Centers for Disease Control

National Institute for Occupational Safety and 

Health

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health

Metals and Controls Corporation Work Group

Monday, April 13, 2020

The Work Group convened telephonically at 11:00 

a.m. Eastern Time, Josie Beach, Chair, presiding.
2 

Present: 

Josie Beach, Chair

Henry A. Anderson, Member

David Kotelchuck, Member

Loretta Valerio, Member

Also Present: 

Ted Katz, Designated Federal Official

Nancy Adams, NIOSH Contractor

Bob Barton, SC&A

Zaida Burgos, NIOSH

Mike Elliott

Rose Gogliotti, SC&A

Tom Labone, ORAU Team

John Mauro, SC&A

Pat McCloskey, ORAU Team

Jenny Naylor, HHS

Lavon Rutherford, DCAS

Mutty Sharfi, ORAU Team 

Tim Taulbee, DCAS
3 

Contents

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 

Centers for Disease Control National Institute for 

Occupational Safety and Health Advisory Board on 

Radiation and Worker Health Metals and Controls 

Corporation Work Group Monday, April 13, 2020 1

Welcome and Roll Call/Introductions 4

Review of the Issues Resolution 

Roadmap/Work Group Resolutions/Additional 

Tasks 7

Report: Issues Resolution Roadmap for Metals 

and Controls Corp., March 12, 2020 8

Petitioner Comments 85

Path Forward/August Board Meeting 

Presentation/Plans 89

Adjourn 92
4

Proceedings

(11:00 a.m.)

Welcome and Roll Call/Introductions

Mr. Katz: This is the Advisory Board on Radiation 

and Worker Health. 

It is the Metals and Controls Work Group, and 

welcome everybody. There are just some 

preliminaries.

The presentation that John Mauro will be giving is 

posted on the NIOSH website, but let me note that 

the basics of that presentation is not posted there, 

and that's my fault. 

I sent it to the petitioner assistant who should have 

sent it out to the petitioners, but I didn't send it to 

the person who posts it in time, so it's not posted 

yet, but it will get posted and will be there for future 

reference, anyway, that paper, and it was 

distributed to the staff and Work Group Members, 

and so on. 

So, let me say that.

Okay, let me get through roll call to start with, and 

let me mention since we're dealing with a site, we 

have conflict of interest to deal with, too.

That won't apply to the Members because the 

Members by definition aren't conflicted on this site, 

or they wouldn't be on the Work Group.

But let me run through and make sure we have all 

our Members here, starting with the Chair, Josie 

Beach.

(Roll call.)

Mr. Katz: Okay, and Mike, and let me just check 

with you up front here. 

You commented at the last meeting. Do you have 
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additional comments for this meeting?

Mr. Elliott: I'd like to reserve the right to at least 

make a comment. 

It'll be brief, whatever it is, and I do have a hard 

stop at 1:30. I have a conference call for work 

today.

Mr. Katz: Yeah. My guess is we'll be done by then, 

Mike. 

And absolutely you have the right to comment. I 

guess but you don't have prepared comments. Is 

that what you're saying? 

Mr. Elliott: Correct, I have no prepared comments 

at this time.

Mr. Katz: Okay. Thanks, Mike. And you did get the 

materials from Josh. Is that correct?

Mr. Elliott: Yes I did, thank you.

Mr. Katz: Okay, thanks. 

(Roll call continued.)

Mr. Katz: And while we're waiting, let me just note, 

you know, the general plan today, and then let me 

just let Josie make whatever remarks she wants to 

make to kick this off, since it's her meeting.

But at our last meeting, we had quite a bit of 

discussion that was fairly fresh to the Board 

Members. So, we wanted some time for them to 

digest that. 

Let me note that at the time, we were going to have 

a Board meeting in April. Of course, that has been 

now postponed, and we are expecting a Board 

meeting in August, the end of August.

So that is in the planning now. That presumes, of 

course, that the COVID situation will have relaxed 

enough that we can have a face-to-face Board 
6

meeting at the end of August.

So, we are starting to make plans for scheduling 

that meeting, and there'll be more about that at the 

June Board teleconference. So, hang on to your hats 

on that. 

But the same plan for this Work Group I think would 

apply to August, which would be that this Work 

Group will present on this petition at the August 

Board meeting, where the Board does not act in 

August, but to consider, and if this Work Group 

wants to leave some issues for Board input before it 

finalizes its recommendations on certain findings, 

that's fine.

And if this Work Group wants to resolve the findings 

of this Work Group, that's also fine. It's up to the 

Work Group and how things go today.

Let me just also note I hear some sort of chatter 

breaking in at times, at least on my phone, so 

everybody but the person speaking should stay on 

mute to help everyone's audio, and if you don't 

have a mute button, press *6 to mute your phone, 

and then you press *6 again to come off of mute.

Okay, so, Dave Kotelchuck, are you with us now?

(No response.) 

Mr. Katz: Okay, well, Josie, it's quarter past 11:00 

at this point, so I'll suggest, you know, if you have 

preliminary comments you want to make, that you 

would go ahead. And we really should get going 

because it's really -- I don't know what the issue is 

with Dave, but --

Chair Beach: I understand. Yeah, no, I hate to not 

have him on the phone. I really don't have any 

long-winded --

Member Kotelchuck: Hello?

(Simultaneous speaking.) 
7

Member Kotelchuck: Hey, I'm on, folks.

Chair Beach: Oh, good. 

Member Kotelchuck: Oh, I'm so sorry to hold you all 

up. I don't know what the problem is.

Mr. Katz: Okay, but glad to have you, Dave. 

Chair Beach: Yeah, you're on now, so that's --

Member Kotelchuck: I am so glad to be here.

Review of the Issues Resolution Roadmap/Work 

Group Resolutions/Additional Tasks

Chair Beach: Excellent. I'm glad everybody's on. I 

don't have any long-winded comments to make. I 

do appreciate the document, the road map that was 

put together by Rose and John Mauro. I think that 

helps put everything into a nice packet.

So, John, I'm assuming you're going to start the 

presentation. Is that correct?

Dr. Mauro: Yes, I'll be starting using the slides, but 

I'm hoping that Rose and Pat McCloskey -- hi, Pat --

would help out. 

Pat, Rose, and I, in a strange sort of way because 

we spent so much time with the petitioners, are 

very close to this issue, and I'm sure Mike Elliott 

remembers us from our meeting, oh, a while back.

Chair Beach: Before you start though, I guess I've 

got a question for the Work Group. 

Do we want John to go through the entire 

presentation, or do we want to take these one issue 

at a time? 

What's your thoughts on that? 

Member Kotelchuck: You know, I was wondering 

about that myself. I have serious concerns about 

the very first slide that he has, and I believe it 

might interrupt things.
8

So, I would be open to having John go through all of 

his slides without our comment, and then come 

back to them one by one.

Chair Beach: Okay.

Member Kotelchuck: And then, how would that be? 

Chair Beach: Yeah, I think that would be fine. 

Loretta and Henry, what do you think?

Member Valerio: I agree with Dave.

Chair Beach: Okay.

Mr. Katz: But let's not --

(Simultaneous speaking.) 

Member Anderson: Let's not doddle on going 

through the whole thing. 

Report: Issues Resolution Roadmap for Metals and 

Controls Corp., March 12, 2020

Dr. Mauro: Okay, I guess if you folks are ready, I'm 

ready. I understand I will go through the slide 

presentation.

Just to let everybody know that the slide 

presentation, in essence, is a summary of the road 

map that's dated March 12. I'm hoping you folks 

had a chance to look at it. If not, that's okay. 

And if you did look at the road map, you'll probably 

see that on page 8 of the road map, there's a list of 

all of the issues.

Now, the reason we put the road map together for 

M&C was that since the beginning of our work, 

which I guess goes back to the original SEC PER 

that was issued by NIOSH on April 23, 2018.

So it was, you know, about only a two year period, 

but there's an awful lot that took place over that 

two year period by way of White Papers, Work 

Group meetings, interviews.
9

During the course of all of those exchanges of White 

Papers and discussions, a lot of findings, 

observations, issues, concerns were embedded, and 

they unfolded over time as with the interaction with 

the petitioners, with Mike.

If you go to the work site information sheet on 

NIOSH's website, you'll see there's, you know, a 

large list of publications, documents, and papers, et 

cetera.

But none of them really have, I guess, completely 

articulated an issue crisply. None of them say, after 

the discussions -- where there was a lot of 

discussions of the issues -- were they opened or 

closed, or in progress, or in abeyance? Something 

that we often do and put into the BRS. 

So, given that we were in that state, we really were 

in a state where we haven't really explicitly decided, 

okay, what issues we can close, and which ones 

really need to be open.

And this goes for both SEC type issues, and what 

we call, you know, a Site Profile-type issues. 

Sometimes it's difficult to distinguish between the 

two.

So, Ted asked if SC&A would prepare a road map, 

and I don't know whether or not you folks have 

access to the road map or not. It is on open NIOSH 

website.

But it's a complex document, and it has as an 

attachment where we collected -- well, a series of 

attachments -- all of the issues as best SC&A could 

identify, describe, and then give a recommendation,

whether we believe, in light of what transpired, we 

believe whether the issue we -- this is SC&A 

speaking now -- are closed or remain in progress. 

Now, given the complexity of the road map, which 

itself would be difficult to go through right now, you 

know, we went ahead and put together a slide 

presentation, which is a boiled down version of the 
10

road map.

So what I plan to do is go through my slide 

presentation, and then after we do that, the degree 

to which you would like to then move over to the 

road map, especially as appendices, where each and 

every one of the perhaps 25 or so issues, findings, 

comments that are listed on page 8 of the road 

map, we could actually go through a process of, you 

know, discussing whether they should be closed or 

not.

Okay, with that introduction, let's start with my 

slide presentation.

And I'd like to thank Rose. It's a very pretty slide 

presentation. Rose put it together for me, and Rose 

was very instrumental in everything we did here, so 

we worked as a team. And of course, all the work 

by Pat. 

We tried to capture and reflect everything so to tell 

the story, and that there would be concurrence, that 

the way in which we represent the information is 

clear and unambiguous, and does capture the story, 

and NIOSH hopefully sees it the same way.

But we'll see as we proceed.

Let me begin. Just as a refresher, it's important to 

set the stage. NIOSH put out a SEC PER in April 23, 

2018.

And it was what I call a conventional SEC Petition 

Evaluation Report before a site, where we're 

concerned with the residual period.

As you probably remember, M&C was granted an 

SEC for the AWE period, which went from the early 

'50s to, I believe, the end of 1967.

And the main reason for granting the SEC was 

issues related to reconstructing doses from thorium.

Then, of course, the second SEC petition came 

across the process dealing with the residual period, 
11

which goes from the beginning of January 1968 to 

about 1996, which is a residual period.

Now, it's important to understand the distinction of 

what took place during the operations and then the 

residual period, and that goes for the heart of the 

matter.

M&C was basically a facility that machined, handled, 

and fabricated fuel for the weapons complex, and it 

included relatively large amounts of uranium and 

relatively small amounts of thorium.

So, during that time period that ended at the end of 

1967.

Now, what's important here is that beginning in 

1968, and the associated SEC Petition Evaluation 

Report, NIOSH used the classic approach of what I 

call the OTIB-70 approach, where you have lots of 

information on contamination on surfaces of, you 

know, gross alpha, on surfaces throughout the --

well, two of the more important buildings, Building 

10 and Building 4.

And using that data gives a conventional approach 

to deriving the doses to workers who might be 

walking around and working on that residual 

radioactivity, where they get external exposure, and 

also internal exposure from resuspension and 

inadvertent ingestion.

And that was the essence of the original SEC 

Petition Evaluation Report. SC&A reviewed it. We 

had a couple of comments on that. 

So that goes to the start of this thing, where NIOSH 

basically took some high-end surface contamination 

levels and used the resuspension factor of ten to the 

minus 6.

Our only comment on that was, well, you know, for 

this type of exposure path where people are walking 

around a building, working, this is during the 

residual period, we thought that the more 
12

appropriate approach would be to use the average 

activity because people are walking around, not the 

high-end activity, which would imply people are 

always sort of at the high-end location.

But we suggested that NIOSH go with a higher 

resuspension factor of ten to the minus 5, and they 

concurred that yes, that would be a more 

appropriate approach, and the outcome of that is a 

small increase in the doses.

So that was sort of the very first issue that we 

engaged in, and I believe that there is agreement 

between SC&A and NIOSH on that very first step in 

the process. But something very important 

happened after the issuance, beside that review 

work that SC&A did.

Right after the SEC Petition Evaluation Report was 

issued, the petitioners pointed out that we missed 

the boat. And you may recall that they pointed out 

that there was an awful lot of activity that took 

place during the residual period, where workers 

were involved in what we refer to as maintenance 

and refurbishing activities, where they were doing 

work in the above-ground and below-ground 

environment in Building 10, which is by far the most 

important building.

And in the above-ground and below-ground 

environment outdoors where there is residual 

radioactivity -- but the dilemma was that while they 

were doing this in the 1970s and 1980s, they were 

not aware that there was residual radioactivity.

It wasn't until the 1980s and 1990s that it became 

apparent that there was residual radioactivity.

So you can see where workers involved in these 

kinds of activities may have come into contact with 

contaminated material and experienced exposures, 

and there was no monitoring, there was no air 

sampling data, there was no soil sampling data, 

sludge sampling data, there was no bioassay 

programs. 
13

They were basically working from 1968 to well into 

the 1980s or 1990s under the impression that the 

site was clean from the perspective of radioactive 

material.

And it's because of that that the petitioners said 

listen, you folks missed all this in your SEC Petition 

Evaluation Report. You need to address it.

And everyone agreed. You probably have heard this 

before, but it's important to me to give -- what I call 

set the table before I get into the slides.

And this really goes to my very first slide, which is 

called goals of the road map. A lot of information 

was gathered after we learned that we missed the 

boat. We spent a lot of time talking to the 

petitioners, gathering information to understand 

these exposure scenarios.

And it's important to think about them as there was 

a large team of workers at M&C that were involved 

in these repurposing and maintenance activities, 

where they crack into the flooring of Building 10 

periodically to do repair work on drainage lines, for 

example.

They would snake drainage lines, they would 

excavate dirt so that they could install new, large 

equipment for the work that was being done, nonAWE work, what I would call commercial work or 

other work that was not related to AWEs. And all 

this is going on, and these folks are handling this 

material. This is an example of one of these 

scenarios.

So, the point that was made by the petitioners is 

that it was essential for NIOSH to look into these 

exposure pathways and quantify them, and it was 

their position that you really can't quantify these 

because we have no data.

And so the question then came to NIOSH, and then 

eventually to SC&A, well, is there any way that 

these doses can be reconstructed?
14

This may have been the only time we did something 

to this extent. We sat down for four days with the 

petitioners and the workers in October of 2018 --

this was shortly after the SEC PER was issued -- to 

say, jeez, we've got to find out more about this.

And what we had to do was carefully listen to the 

workers. And we spoke with 12 workers, each 

worker for about two hours each, taking lots of 

notes. And all those notes now I believe have been 

put on the open web. 

But what we had to do is listen and try to construct 

scenarios, worker scenarios. What did they actually 

do, and where would be the exposures that might 

occur?

So, almost think of it like this. Beside the fact that, 

you know, they are 2,000 hours per year or more, 

there were certain time periods that different 

workers performed different maintenance and 

repurposing activities where for some relatively 

short period of time, they would experience unique 

exposures associated with particular activities, 

above-ground and below-ground, indoors and 

outdoors, that would have delivered exposures that 

were unique to M&C.

And all of this is discussed, and we discussed all this 

before, and all these White Papers, you know, are 

on the web.

And but they're all presented in a way that's 

contained in so many different documents, and the 

road map attempts to collect all this and organize it 

so that we can get our arms around it, and then 

eventually go through each issue, and the Work 

Group can make a decision regarding whether the 

issue has effectively been resolved, or whether or 

not it's closed, or whether it remains open.

I will begin this by saying that in SC&A's opinion --

and this is almost like the end of the story, but it's 

nice to know where we're going to head -- SC&A 

believes that all SEC issues have been resolved, a 
15

subject that will be probably the most important 

discussion we will have.

But I do believe that there are not too many left, 

but there are a number of issues that I would refer 

to as Site Profile issues that still require resolution.

Okay, with that, more or less an extended 

introduction to set the table, let's go on to the next 

slide, the one called exposure scenarios. 

Remember, we invented these. What I mean by 

that is between Pat McCloskey, and NIOSH, and 

their contractors, and SC&A, we said okay, we 

listened to the workers, and they had opportunities 

to comment on many meetings, and we effectively 

identified a number of exposure scenarios that were 

very unique to the workers involved in maintenance 

and repurposing.

And the first and most important one, which we're 

going to start with, is the exposures associated with 

work in Building 10.

Building 10 was the most important building with 

respect to the handling of the AWE activities that 

took place prior to 1968, and it's the building that 

had the potential for the greatest amount of 

residual radioactivity that was left over once the 

residual period began.

Okay? And out of that, what we call the Building 10 

exposures, we grouped them into four different 

categories of activities that the workers were 

involved in. What we call subsurface work, including 

the snaking of pipes and the replacement of pipes in 

the subsurface environment. HVAC maintenance, 

where workers had to go and clean out and service 

the HVAC system, which includes removal of filters. 

There was also a lot of maintenance work on the 

roofing, and a lot of that work involved a unique 

pathway, welding.

So for Building 10, we invented or categorized with 

the help, of course, of the petitioners, to understand 

and create these four major categories of exposure 
16

pathways.

And the other group we are calling non-Building 10 

exposure. This really refers to work that was done 

outdoors.

So that's our second group, where people were 

doing things outdoors.

And finally, we are going to talk a little bit about 

what I call overarching issues, and they'll become 

apparent what they are, and they're issues related 

to external exposures, issues related to substitute

data.

And to me in my mind, that is the single most 

important overarching SEC issue that I know Josie 

and the Work Group are going to want to hear more 

about because within that issue, therein lies the 

potential for an SEC.

And finally, we have thorium. As you probably are 

aware and remember, we had lots of gross alpha 

data, we had lots of uranium data, but we did have 

a limited amount of thorium data, which meant that 

it's going to be a little more difficult to reconstruct 

doses to workers -- internal doses from an 

inhalation of thorium because there was a limitation 

on that data.

So, the series of slides you're about to go through 

go through each of these major headings and their 

subcategories.

So I'm going to go to the next slide, okay, which is 

titled Building 10 subsurface and pipes.

Okay, we talked about this before, but it all boils 

down to the issue -- what was done is, we have lots 

of data characterizing the uranium concentrations in 

the subsurface environment in Building 10, and I 

won't go into the numbers.

There are a large amount of material that was 

collected in the 1990s just prior to the beginning of 
17

the license termination, the FUSRAP 

characterization, and then close out period.

So, that data, which was extensive, was collected in 

the 1990s, and it characterized the nature of the 

radioactive contamination in the subsurface 

environment.

And as sort of like a preliminary to point out that 

the big issue -- and we'll talk about this much more 

-- is, you know, can you use that data as a 

substitute for the concentrations of radionuclides 

that were collected in the 1990s and apply it to 

activities that took place in the 1970s and '80s?

We're going to get to that, and I know we're going 

to want to talk a lot about that, but let's try to put 

to bed right now some of the things that I think are 

a little easier.

Let's just operate for a moment on the assumption 

that we like the 1990 data and that we can 

theoretically use it, and that's what SC&A did, and 

that's what NIOSH did.

And this slide represents a summary of SC&A's 

investigations into trying to reconstruct the internal 

exposures and the external exposures from workers 

involved in Building 10 subsurface activities and 

snaking the pipes, where they likely inadvertently 

came into contact or close proximity to 

contaminated sludge and soil in the subsurface 

environment, and did not know it, okay? And during 

the course of those activities, they removed a lot of 

solid material during these activities. 

Now, both SC&A and NIOSH independently derived 

doses using standard techniques, techniques that 

we've been using forever, for doing dose 

calculations.

Once you have an idea of what the concentration 

level is of a radionuclide in the soil of the subsurface 

environment, or any material, in terms of picocuries 

per gram, you are in a position using very 
18

conventional methods to reconstruct inhalation 

exposures, and inadvertent ingestion exposures, 

and external exposures.

And we both did that, and it turns out what we have 

is a comparison of the key assumptions and 

approach that SC&A used on the major parameters 

in going through these calculations, and those that 

were used by NIOSH. Okay? 

Of course the most important metric is the 

concentration of, in this case, uranium, that was in 

the subsurface environment, especially in the pipes 

because we found that it's the pipelines that 

represented the places where the highest 

concentrations were found.

And the reason that happened is that during AWE 

operations, there were drainage pipes and conduits 

that carried water, wastewater, that ran through 

these pipes and got clogged with soot, sediment, 

and in fact, in one particular instance, a small piece 

of the uranium rod.

And so, when you look at all of the data that's been 

collected in the 1990s, and to a limited extent in the 

1980s, you have lots of information on the 

concentration of uranium.

In some cases, it's total uranium, in some cases, it's 

individual isotopes, uranium and thorium.

But we did our work and we said that, well, what we 

think is a good idea is using the data that's collected 

inside the pipelines in a subsurface environment.

To look at that data, and we said well, there's a 

distribution of concentrations, but we think that the 

high-end values are the values that should be used. 

So we found that high-end value, we call it the 95th 

percentile, was 5,878 picocuries per gram.

NIOSH did the same thing we did, except when they 

looked at the data, they came up with 6,887 

picocuries per gram.
19

Quite frankly, two different groups of people looking 

at a large data set. This is agreement, as far as I'm 

concerned. To say one is right and one is wrong 

would be inappropriate. They're both scientifically 

sound and claimant-favorable. 

If you agree that you could use data collected in the 

1990s to characterize the radionuclide composition 

what was in the pipelines in the 1970s and 1980s. 

Again, this is the big issue.

Now, we'll get into this in a little bit more detail, but 

we found that though the pipes were snaked, and 

likely a considerable amount of radioactivity might 

have been removed inadvertently by the M&C 

workers performing subsurface activities, that we 

also found that there were a number of pipelines 

which were clearly never snaked and never cleaned 

up, never removed.

In fact, this is where we found this small piece of 

fuel. 

Now, the fuel is pure uranium, but we also found 

right there in the vicinity of the same network of 

pipelines, elevated levels of sludge that were as 

high as ten percent of pure uranium.

In other cases, one percent, and in most cases, well 

below that.

So clearly, there were pipelines that were never 

snaked, and that contained the highest levels of 

uranium that conceivably could have been present 

because it included an actual piece of uranium.

And so, I'm giving you a little hint right now of one 

of the reasons we believe that though a 

considerable amount of material, including 

radioactive material, may have been removed 

during these 1970s and 1980s repurposing 

activities, with regard to the pipelines, there was 

clearly evidence that some of those pipes were not 

cleaned, snaked, and those pipes, as it turns out, 
20

contained, in absolute terms, the highest 

concentrations of residual radioactivity that could 

have been present in those pipelines.

So this is one of the reasons that we believe that 

the data that we have from the 1990s probably 

apply to these earlier years because it's clear that 

those specific pipelines where the -- there were 

places on the entire site that had the highest levels, 

levels that could not be any higher because it 

included pure uranium.

So in any event, I'm sort of giving you a hint of one 

of the big SEC issues and where we're headed, and 

why we think we have a tractable problem.

And then there are other parameters involved in 

this calculation. 

You picture the person who's down in the hole, and 

he's digging and he's cutting pipe or he's snaking 

pipe, and there's airborne radioactivity being kicked 

up as a result of these activities.

Well, SC&A researched the literature and it turns 

out the EPA recommends that for remediation 

activities, a good default value for the dust loading 

is 200 micrograms per cubic meter.

So, you know, once you feel that you got a pretty 

good handle on the picocuries per gram of 

contamination, then you say, well, what might be 

up in the air?

We're saying, well, we think a pretty good number 

is 200 micrograms per cubic meter.

Now NIOSH, they came up with a different number. 

They came up with 220 micrograms per cubic 

meter, which is different than ours, and they came 

up with it in an entirely different way. They used 

some data from a remediation at the Mound Site. 

Now, we felt that, eh, you know, if that was the only 

number we had, we'd have a problem with that. And 
21

you know, the degree to which what they did, and 

what was present at the Mound Site facility, does 

that apply to subsurface work at the M&C facility?

But coincidentally, it turns out that the numbers are 

very close. 

And in fact, when you look at our sources of data, 

the 220 is within the domain ranges of values that 

are certainly plausible for airborne activity during 

remediation activities of this site.

So again, my position is, and SC&A's position is, 

that there's no difference between these numbers. 

They both are reasonably scientifically valid 

concentrations of what might be airborne by the 

way of dust for these types of activities. 

So although there's a difference, we consider the 

difference to be not substantive.

Next item, breathing rate. 

Now, one of the things we did, which we never did 

before at another site, is we didn't use the classic 

1.2 cubic meter per hour number for breathing rate 

for these workers.

And this was something that Rose suggested that 

we do because she felt that, you know, you 

visualize a guy working in a hole with a shovel, 

digging and working, he's really working, and he's 

breathing heavily.

And it was SC&A's position that, you know, we're 

going to give them the next higher breathing rate 

and go to the 2.5.

So we ended up using a higher breathing rate. 

Now, something interesting transpired. One of the 

things we originally did, both SC&A and NIOSH, we 

assumed that the people that were doing this work, 

when they did it, during the course of a year, that 

over the course of a year, totality of one month per 

year was spent in a hole.
22

Now, this would be not a one-time event that took 

place over one month. 

It may have been many different separate activities 

where a person would go into the subsurface 

environment and do some work, and maybe that 

would happen several times per year.

And as best we could tell from our conversations 

with the petitioners in our October 28 interviews, 

we, SC&A picked a totality of one effective month 

per year was spent by workers in the hole.

And which meant, perhaps, you know, any 

individual operation would be some fraction of that. 

But then we extended that to two months per year 

because there was some good feedback from the 

petitioners that they felt that one month per year 

was not conservative enough, so we've changed it 

to two months per year.

So now we're asking ourselves, okay, so perhaps 

these workers spent more time -- each time they 

did the work, they spent more time in the hole than 

we thought.

And it's really impossible for a person to be -- no, I 

wouldn't say impossible -- it's highly unlikely that a 

person would be working so hard for so many 

consecutive hours, and for all those consecutive 

hours, have a breathing rate of 2.5 cubic meters per 

hour.

So right now, given this change, you know, we're 

thinking that, you know, it's hard to say, but the 1.2 

number that NIOSH used is probably not a bad 

number.

Our number may be a little exaggerated, you know, 

an overestimate of the breathing rate, especially 

when we thought to extend the duration a person 

may be in the hole.

Now, let me say a couple more things which goes to 
23

the SEC issue. Think about this. We know that we 

got the upper 95th percentile concentration.

I'm spending a lot of time on this one because this 

is where all the action is. Everything I'll say after 

here is by far less limiting than this exposure 

scenario.

So it's important that we look closely at this, and 

you'll see we'll move much more quickly as we 

move through the next slides, so please bear with 

me.

You know, think of it like this. 

We believe we found a set of data representing 

contamination in pipes that were not cleaned out, 

that were not removed, and represent the 

distribution of concentrations that are at the upper 

end, and are likely to represent the upper end that 

was present at the site during the entire AWE 

period, even though there were other pipes that 

may have been snaked where the radioactivity was 

removed.

But this is clearly a set of pipes that were not 

snaked, and they do represent an upper end. 

So that goes toward the SEC issue. But now let's 

see, there's another aspect. 

But we said, but you know, even then, we would not 

want to take the average of the activities that were 

in these pipelines that apparently were not snaked.

Just to give the benefit of the doubt, what we'll do is 

we'll go with the upper 95th percentile 

concentration that was observed in the sludge in 

these particular pipelines.

And we're going to take it a step further. We're 

going to assume that that upper 95th percentile 

concentration was not only present in the pipelines, 

it was also present in the dirt in the vicinity of the 

pipelines. 
24

In effect, all of the dirt in the subsurface 

environment where M&C workers may have 

encountered is at the upper 95th percentile. 

Something that we've considered to be incredibly 

claimant-favorable, so that all that there is is at the 

upper 95th percentile.

So this all goes towards the SEC now -- issue. We 

did one more thing, and so did NIOSH, and not only 

did we assume that all the dirt was at the 95th 

percentile, we assumed that the same person is 

doing this work month after month, year after year, 

the same person, and calculated that annual dose.

We know from talking to the workers that different 

people went in the hole to do these kinds of things, 

but we assume they're the same person.

And now, this is a subtlety, this is something we've 

done before. When you don't know who that person 

is, or what different people did, you make the 

assumption that everyone gets that dose.

So think of it like this. Our recommendation or our 

approach to the problem was to say, this particular 

dose under these assumptions is going to be applied 

to every single worker that are covered by this 

petition, namely that they were exposed to the 

upper 95th percentile all the time, whenever they 

were in the hole, and every single worker gets that 

dose. 

This is a way for us to feel confident that we are 

placing an upper bound, a plausible -- perhaps not 

even a little bit, more than plausible.

You know, it's an extremely high-end scenario for 

deriving inhalation doses to workers involved in 

subsurface activity.

Well, we're going to give this to everybody because 

we don't know who did and who did not perform 

subsurface work, so this exposure, this internal 

exposure is going to be applied to all workers.
25

And by the way, you're going to find out that even 

under those circumstances, which are quite 

extreme, the doses are relatively low, and we have 

the actual numbers, of course.

So I spent a lot of time on this slide because it goes

to the heart of all the issues that are concerned to 

the Work Group.

I'm going to move on now. 

By the way, we recommend notwithstanding the 

SEC discussion that we'll probably have later, we 

believe that if you accept that this is a reasonable 

way to come at the problem, and that the 

parameters that we both used -- though in some 

cases there are differences, we don't consider those 

differences of any great substance, and we're 

perfectly supportive of using NIOSH's assumptions 

or SC&A's assumptions.

We think they're both reasonable, scientifically 

sound ways of reconstructing the doses to these 

workers. So, in a way I'm saying that, rather than 

quibble over some of these small differences, I think 

we should close the issue because we don't think 

that there are any issues except for the SEC issue 

that I mentioned.

But once you accept that premise that we can use 

that data, we believe this issue could be closed 

regarding subsurface exposures, internal exposures 

in Building 10.

Let me move on so we can get through this. I spent 

a lot of time, but let me move on a little more 

quickly.

The other scenario that we --

Member Kotelchuck: Please. Please do.

Dr. Mauro: Yeah. I want to make sure everybody 

understands because this is the heart of the matter. 

This is where the issue --
26

Member Kotelchuck: You're making the detailed 

argumentation that if we want to discuss this, we're 

going to have to go over again.

I was hoping -- respectfully, I was hoping this would 

be a briefer presentation and then we go over each 

one in great detail with lots of discussion by 

yourself, and everybody from NIOSH, and all the 

people from the Working Group.

Dr. Mauro: I understand, Dr. Kotelchuck. I will 

move quickly.

Member Kotelchuck: So, with that, I respectfully --

please.

Dr. Mauro: I will do that right now.

The second scenario is the HVAC scenario. This is 

where workers are involved in maintenance 

activities.

I won't explain how we did our doses, but the 

bottom line is both SC&A and NIOSH agree on the 

approach in the exposures basically on workers that 

work with the -- replace filters, and the filters could 

be contaminated with elevated levels of dust.

And when they pull out those -- when they did that 

work, they could have experienced relatively high 

concentrations of uranium on dust, inhaled that, 

and experienced exposures.

We considered the assumptions that we used quite 

conservative and -- which we can get into detail 

later, if you want to, but we're coming up with dose 

rates on the order of 1.77 millirem per hour, which 

is an effective dose, not an organ dose, and which 

we consider to be very small.

And the real question is, do you agree with the 

strategy for how this was done? We can talk about 

that in great detail later. So, I'm moving quickly.

Let me go with the next slide. Building 10 roof and 

overhead. There was maintenance work that took 
27

place on the -- in the roofing environment.

And we have data, which basically is swipe data and 

survey data, for gross alpha activity whereby we --

a lot of data whereby we can characterize the upper 

95th percentile contamination levels.

And using an appropriately conservative 

resuspension factor, in this case 10 to the minus 4 

per meter -- as you know, typically we would use 

either 10 to the minus 6 or 10 to the minus 5, but 

we kicked it up a notch here given the nature of the 

kind of work in terms of maintenance work that took 

place.

And we think that although there are small 

differences in the activity, the gross alpha activity, 

as you can see, we consider both sets of numbers, 

since they were derived independently, really close 

and we have no dispute with NIOSH regarding it, 

and we think this issue could be closed.

Let me move on. Welding. This was an issue raised 

a little bit more recently by the petitioners, and 

NIOSH had prepared a report regarding how they 

would reconstruct doses to welders. SC&A is 

currently reviewing that work and a report will be 

coming out shortly. 

We apologize that we weren't -- do not have this 

work ready now, but [identifying information 

redacted.

External exposures outdoors. Okay. There were 

workers outside. We have lots of data characterizing 

contamination in surface soil from cores taken at 

many locations. Lots of data -- we'll get into the 

details -- characterizing the radioactivity.

Which means that once you know -- have a sense 

that you trust the characterization of the outdoor 

contamination in the soil where workers may have 

been involved and working outdoors, you can 

reconstruct the doses.
28

We used the average -- SC&A used the average 

activity of the data for the official soil to derive the 

external exposures from people working outdoors --

and we assumed they were out there for 2,000 

hours per year -- and we came up with low doses.

A recurring theme for every one of these scenarios 

is, notwithstanding the quite conservative 

assumptions used, we're still getting doses that are 

extremely low and we would recommend closing 

this issue.

Next one. Below ground. We know that workers 

were also involved in subsurface work outdoors. 

We modeled it using -- taking the core data, now, 

where we get information vertically on how the 

activity referred with depth and location outdoors, 

we took the upper 95th percentile value and derived 

a dose for people working 200 hours per year 

outdoors. We get 2 millirem per year. So, we're 

getting extremely low external doses.

Okay. Now, I'll keep going. In addition, as you can 

imagine, we could do internal doses, and we did, 

the same way.

We're going to talk a little bit about an overarching 

issue for external exposures and we'll do that a little 

later. We're going to go quickly.

Finally, SC&A looked at another -- we created 

another scenario which we call the water treatment 

scenario.

We really haven't talked much about it, but it was 

discussed during the meetings and we found that 

the -- that this is probably another way where water 

was collected, the solids were separated, 

compacted, and disposed of or shipped offsite for 

further treatment. We modeled it that way.

We found the doses to be extremely small and 

negligible and we said that's that. Really, the end of 

the story here. There is really no issue here. 
29

But we did look at that because it was pointed out 

as a possible -- as one of the things people did 

during the residual period. 

External exposure issues. This is an overarching 

issue that -- where NIOSH said that, well, let's use 

the last few months -- and they can probably 

explain it better than I can -- of the film badge data 

that was collected at the end of the AWE period as 

being a good representative of what the exposures 

might have been to the workers during the residual 

period.

Their argument is that, well, those workers likely 

were involved in subsurface activities, maintenance 

activities and also -- and, of course, also uraniumhandling activities because at the end of 1967 there 

was still some uranium onsite.

SC&A's position was, well, we'd rather not use that 

approach because it may be an overestimate of the 

doses.

If there was actually uranium being handled at that 

time, we would be the first to agree that such an 

approach would be bounding.

But we felt that it was incumbent on us to try, at 

least, to actually reconstruct the external exposures 

from those scenarios that we just described using 

the data in the same way, and we did.

And when you compare the results, it turns out that 

NIOSH's approach results in doses that are 

somewhat higher -- not much higher -- than our 

doses, and we are perfectly comfortable with 

accepting NIOSH's doses as a good way to place a 

plausible upper bound on external exposures that 

any of the workers might have experienced.

And that's substantiated by the fact that we actually 

modeled each of these different pathways and we 

came out with doses that were somewhat lower 

both -- external, both beta and gamma. Now, we 

really are not that concerned.
30

Conceptually, I was always a little troubled by the 

idea that you would use data -- film badge data that 

was collected during the AWE period.

But NIOSH focused in on it and they made this 

clear, as work progressed, that they really worked 

on the end -- the data represented the end of the 

AWE period where there's reason to believe that it 

reflects refurbishing and maintenance activities, but 

also exposures to the fuel itself.

And in that regard, it gives you a somewhat higher 

dose than the one -- the doses we got, but -- so, we 

feel that there is -- this is an issue that can be 

closed. We're perfectly fine with accepting NIOSH's 

values as being bounding.

Alright. Now, we're getting to the most important 

issue which we call substitute data. In effect, I've 

already addressed this issue. 

The limiting pathway, by far, is Building 10. And you 

heard my extended discussion of why we believe we 

could use that data to reconstruct those doses, and 

we're going to give those doses to everybody. 

So, in effect, we think that accounts for the 

concerns about whether you can use 1990 data to 

apply to 1970 and 1980.

There are two other reasons, that I didn't discuss 

previously, that there's further evidence that that's 

probably a reasonable thing to do because it turns 

out when the NRC came in in the 1980s and did 

their measurements of some selected sources of 

contamination, they found that the results of their 

measurements were comparable to the results of 

the measurements made by M&C at the end of 1967 

when they terminated activities and they had a 

bunch of data characterizing the environment of the 

site, of Building 10.

And that the numbers for the places where they did 

take measurements, they were comparable.
31

This sort of argues that really things that didn't 

change that much between the end of AWE 

operations and when the measurements were made 

in the 1980s.

A similar thing happened in the 1990s where a 

comparison was made between the 1980 data and 

the 1990 data, which was the data collected by 

contractors in support of the characterization and 

cleanup of the site.

So, adding all these things together, these three 

items, we feel that there is a level of information 

that says, yes, we can use the 1990 data as a 

substitute for exposures in the 1970s and '80s. And 

that goes to the heart of the SEC issues that we're 

dealing with here.

Thorium exposures is another overarching issue. 

NIOSH has prepared its report on the subject. 

SC&A was hoping to have its results ready on this 

issue. Work is being performed by Bob Anigstein 

and, unfortunately -- well, I spoke to him, as I said. 

He will have the report ready in time, I guess, for 

the plans that you're making for the next meetings 

so that we could get into not only thorium, but also 

the other work, the welding work. 

That concludes my slide presentation. I hope you 

found it sufficient as to lay the groundwork for us to 

go into the individual issues.

Chair Beach: Yeah, John, that was sufficient. Thank 

you very much. Very well-done.

Dave, I know you have some questions. Do you 

want to start us off here?

Member Kotelchuck: Okay. I have questions about 

Slide No. 3, the subsurface -- Building 10 

subsurface and pipes.

Dr. Mauro: Sure.
32

Member Kotelchuck: Can you hear me okay?

Dr. Mauro: Yes, I can.

Member Kotelchuck: And I spent a lot of time going 

through this because as I reviewed the NIOSH 

document for October 24th, 2018, which I will refer 

to because I went through it, and the issue was 

looking at the Mound Plant canal cleanup and using 

it as an upper bound on -- for the plant for the 

indoor work.

Now, I raised the outdoor/indoor question at the --

at our last meeting and I'm basically continuing --

I've continued to pursue that.

And I -- on page -- now, folks don't necessarily 

have it in front of them, but on page 9 of that 

report, that NIOSH report, they said there could be 

-- one is -- Mound is outdoors and the subsurface 

work in Building 10 is indoors -- there could be 

differences that make the Mound excavation 

activities more likely to generate airborne dust than 

the inside subsurface work at M&C; however, the 

Mound data provides implausible upper bound for 

the M&C dust loading. And that really bothered me.

It's an area of industrial hygiene -- and I've been 

involved in that specific area. I was at CIH for a 

couple of decades until I retired.

And what I -- generally when we're talking about a 

source, a source that's indoors tends to have a 

higher level of exposure than an -- for particulates 

than an outdoor source, because the outdoor 

source, it's no longer -- there's no longer any 

bounding. There is the atmosphere that dilutes 

depending on weather, depending on wind and 

turbulence.

And you can't -- if you're going to do a dust loading 

on the outside -- on outdoors, then you've got to --

you've got to consider the weather conditions.

And, therefore, to say -- so, by my measure of 
33

thinking if we talk about dust loading outdoors, it 

should be less than what went on indoors in any of 

the buildings.

And that -- one of us is wrong or I -- and I would 

like to -- would like -- well, put it this way: That is 

my concern.

And I would like to have a discussion of why it is 

more likely to generate the dust loading than 

indoors, and that to me is important.

I can then go over, and I would be very glad to, 

some of the other issues that were raised that give 

credibility to the Mound.

So, basically I don't -- my feeling is that the Mound 

data is not appropriate to use for the dust loading.

And all -- if you look at Slide 3, the dust loading --

the contamination levels are fine at -- but you're 

using the dust loading -- you're using the Mound 

data for both SC&A and NIOSH dust loading.

Well, I don't see how you can use it. So, can 

somebody explain to me why they believe that it 

might -- that this is an upper bound?

Mr. Rutherford: I'll jump in just for a second.

Member Kotelchuck: Good. Please.

Mr. Rutherford: I will say that SC&A's 200 

micrograms per cubic meter is not the same as the 

Mound data. They took theirs from a different 

source. 

The 220 micrograms per cubic meter, I think Pat 

can get into the details why that was chosen, but I 

think a couple of things that Dr. Mauro -- that John 

mentioned earlier play a factor here.

If you take -- look into the fact that -- in fact, if you 

read his roadmap report, it talks about the high 

water table around --
34

(Simultaneous speaking) 

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.

Mr. Rutherford: So, excavation that took place 

during that, there's a high likelihood that the 

material was wet. There's a high likelihood that 

when they removed the pipes, there was water in 

the pipes.

And so, I believe, in that situation, you have a lower 

chance of the dust loading inside the underground 

surfaces, but I'll let Pat add additional details on 

why the 220 micrograms was chosen.

Mr. McCloskey: Yeah. Sure.

In that same document you were just reading there, 

Dr. Kotelchuck, on page 9 --

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.

Mr. McCloskey: -- go up to the beginning of that 

section. And this is where we go through the IG4's 

authority to use --

Member Kotelchuck: Right.

Mr. McCloskey: -- to qualify surrogate data.

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.

Mr. McCloskey: But in the Facilities and Process 

Similarity section starting halfway through there, we 

say, excavation activities at Mound involved using a 

backhoe to remove soils. Using water as a dust 

suppressant was sporadic and not consistently 

applied. In addition, wind breaks, tents or 

ventilation were not used.

And then the next paragraph we say, both outside 

and inside subsurface work at M&C occurred from 

'68 to '96 as with Mound's excavation activities.

Now, here is where we felt the need to talk about 

one being -- the indoor work being different than 
35

the outdoor work: Outside subsurface work involved 

using a backhoe to remove soils. Inside subsurface 

work at M&C involved shoveling and snaking soils 

and drain residues.

Member Kotelchuck: Right.

Mr. McCloskey: So, we highlight the heavy 

equipment that was used outside and its ability to 

generate more dust, right?

Member Kotelchuck: Right.

Mr. McCloskey: And so, we felt like in the next --

and everything else was pretty much the same, if 

you continue out that paragraph.

And so in the next paragraph right after that, we 

say: Outdoor subsurface work, as you read, is 

substantially similar. There could be differences that 

make the Mound excavation activities more likely to 

generate airborne dust than inside subsurface work. 

And it is solely based on that heavy equipment use 

there.

Member Kotelchuck: Right, but --

Mr. McCloskey: And there's other things we do in 

this paper to also do a sanity check of our data, 

right?

Member Kotelchuck: That's correct. Right.

Mr. McCloskey: We looked at the internal monitoring 

and the urinalysis that was done when actually they 

used heavy equipment inside or -- and we 

compared that to the --

Member Kotelchuck: But let me --

Mr. McCloskey: Go ahead.

Member Kotelchuck: But looking at each of those, 

and I have gone over them, first, wasn't the burial 

area basically outdoor work?
36

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Member Kotelchuck: Yes, that's correct. But what 

I'm concerned about is that -- given my concerns, I 

said you're using the Mound data, which is outside, 

you're comparing the urinalysis that you did there 

with the outside work in the burial area and, guess 

what, outside and outside agree. And that is good 

and that says that the Mound data is good.

And, by the way, it was a very fine study -- I mean, 

it was a very fine, detailed study outdoors.

So, you're comparing outdoors and outdoors and, 

guess what, that's good. So, it's sanity in the 

outdoors, but I'm worried about the indoor 

exposure.

Now, you've told me, and you're saying, that the 

indoor exposure may be bound because of the 

water table and the dampness there.

And that may be true, but you're applying the 

outdoor work to the indoor, and that outdoor work 

wouldn't characterize what the indoor was.

And if I may just jump to the very next page, when 

you were doing that third comparison -- we'll come 

back to the other one -- you had -- on page 11, 

you're looking at the maximum bad case, if you will, 

inside in the Building 10 subsurface and you're 

using data -- good data from 1995, right -- or 1994-

'95 -- '95.

With the '95 data with measurements -- good 

quality measurements for those workers that were 

working in that excavation, the inside value for the 

uranium was 1.5 times 10 to the minus 12 

microcuries per milliliter. And the outside was a 

factor of 50 below it, 2.5 10 to the minus 14.

So, it is exactly with good data for a limited number 

of people, not necessarily the workers in the plant, 

but the people who were contracted and doing this 

work, the outside uranium, you know, concentration 
37

was much, much less than the inside. 

And that's the concern that I have that you're using 

the outside loading data from Mound to extend to 

inside whereas, in fact, that is a very low value 

compared to the value that people have inside.

And there's one measurement right there that 

contradicts what you were saying that the inside --

or the outside measurement might be larger than 

the inside.

So, that's -- let's just say that's concerning, you 

know.

Mr. Rutherford: Can we ask SC&A how they came 

up with their 200 number?

Member Kotelchuck: Sure.

Dr. Mauro: Yeah, no, we just reviewed the literature 

on remediation for assumptions for modeling that 

EPA has put out.

And they have a range of values of what the dust 

loading should be assumed when reconstructing 

doses for remediation workers. And they 

recommend 200 micrograms per cubic meter.

So, we accepted that and that together with the 

other assumptions -- now, theoretically we could 

have went with a higher number, but then we would 

have been using multiple high values.

See, sometimes I hesitate on every parameter in a 

calculation to always use the high value because 

then we get off on the tail that's so extreme and is 

not plausible.

For example, we use very high-end values for the 

concentrations. We use a very high-level value for 

the breathing rate. We theoretically could have gone 

with a higher value for the dust loading. 

Even though the recommended dust loading is 200, 

we could have said, well, we theoretically have gone 
38

with higher values for dust loadings that are in the 

literature, but then we would have actually three 

parameters. All of which would be what you would 

call high, upper-end values which were a 

multiplicative -- puts you in a place where you're at 

an extreme.

The probability of that being the case becomes 

extremely small sort of compounding 

conservativisms. So, we went with the 200, which is 

the recommended value.

Member Kotelchuck: Well --

Dr. Mauro: But I understand your concern and --

Member Kotelchuck: -- are you telling me that you 

are not using the Mound data to- go from your --

Dr. Mauro: No, we did not.

Member Kotelchuck: -- 95th percentile down to that 

dust loading?

Dr. Mauro: No, we did not use any Mound data. We 

simply went into the literature that EPA puts out 

regarding modeling doses associated with 

remediation work.

And their recommended value --

Member Kotelchuck: So, if we drop the Mound study 

entirely and said, look, it's fine, it's a very good 

study of the outdoor exposure, but that's -- we're 

dealing with the subsurface.

If we threw it away, you're telling me we'd get the 

same results, but we were not using it numerically.

Dr. Mauro: Yes. Correct. We are not using it. We are 

using our own independent -- and, coincidentally,

they come in pretty close to each other.

And, yes, if we -- you know, if you go with the 200 -

- we're going with 200 as opposed to 220 

micrograms per cubic meter based on a completely 
39

independent dataset compiled by the EPA for 

remediation work, which is sort of generic.

And we could have gone with a higher value and the 

range of values that are reported in the literature, 

but we felt that the combination of multiple 

parameters at the upper end value would put you in 

a place that is implausible.

So, yeah, we did not even look at the Mound data. 

What we did is say, well, we -- in fact, we actually 

came up with our number before NIOSH did its 

work. 

They decided to go with the Mound as a surrogate 

number and it just turned out to be very close to 

the value we used, which is completely 

independent.

Member Anderson: It's the EPA Exposure Factors 

Handbook?

Dr. Mauro: Yes. It was either -- you know, it was 

either that -- you know, I have to say it was either 

that or the data summarized in NUREG/CR-5512, 

which is the NRC's guidelines.

You know, I use both of those. I use the Exposure 

Factors Handbook and I use what's called 

NUREG/CR-5512, which talks about, you know, 

decommissioning exposures.

Member Anderson: Okay.

Dr. Mauro: And I'd have to go back and -- I could 

collect all that data and put it all together. 

In fact, I think I've done that, you know, in other 

occasions and that's where we come out at.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay. I'd like to see that data 

because we -- okay. So, I understood. 

So, the NIOSH -- right. The NIOSH used that data, 

which I think is flawed or inappropriate to be using 

for the subsurface.
40

And I -- what you have argued is that the exposure 

indoors was even lower than it would ordinarily 

have been because of the water table.

But that doesn't tell me that using the outdoors 

data, which is too low, is going to give you a result.

What you're saying is the result is even lower on the 

indoor -- so, it's lower on the indoor. So, using the 

outdoor data, which is too low, is better than -- is 

better than what you might have measured had you 

measured in there.

And I just feel that's -- it's a circular argument.

Dr. Mauro: Well, I'll look --

Member Kotelchuck: I mean, the fact that SC&A 

used a different set of parameters there, I'll be very 

glad to take a look at that.

I want to take a look at it, in fact, because it --

Ms. Gogliotti: Dave, I can send you that reference 

that we used.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay. I'd appreciate it. I'd 

appreciate it. 

Right now, I'm in -- this has been a little bit difficult. 

I have been off of my Smart Card and off of the 

CDC. I have no access to it. I expired -- my Smart 

Card expired on February 6th.

By the time we could get things together to have it 

reproduced -- I have a new Smart Card sitting in 

Atlanta and there's no way to get it.

I'm not flying to Atlanta, nor should I, and they 

can't mail it.

Mr. Katz: Dave, Rose can send you -- I can send 

you a personal email of what Rose has referenced.

Member Kotelchuck: Yes. Fine.

Ms. Gogliotti: Yeah. These are publicly available --
41

Member Kotelchuck: And I'd appreciate that.

Ms. Gogliotti: -- documents.

Member Kotelchuck: And I -- absolutely. I realize 

that.

Mr. Katz: Thanks, Rose.

Member Kotelchuck: Thank you.

Chair Beach: Okay. And so, back on that note, the 

EPA documents, where was that gathered?

Dr. Mauro: Well, I have to go do some homework. I 

hear the question. What we can do, I guess, Step 1 

is, Rose, if you can provide that document.

In addition, I have a compendium of information on 

indoor dust loadings. In fact, I'm doing all that work 

--

Member Kotelchuck: Great.

Dr. Mauro: -- I'm doing a lot of work for CDC at this 

time on another program related to the national --

never mind. I'm not going to get into that.

But I -- yes, I understand your concern and we will 

provide you with information so you can see that 

the 200 micrograms per cubic meter we used is, in 

fact, something that you considered to be 

reasonable based on the datasets --

Member Kotelchuck: Right.

Dr. Mauro: -- that are the basis for it. I think that's 

certainly a reasonable question and we'll get that to 

you.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay. Very good.

Dr. Mauro: Yeah. Yeah. Be glad to do that.

Member Kotelchuck: I appreciate that.

Dr. Taulbee: Dr. Kotelchuck, this is Tim Taulbee.
42

Member Kotelchuck: Uh-huh.

Dr. Taulbee: I have one additional comment for you 

to consider in this when you're comparing the 

indoors and outdoors comparison.

In general, I would agree with what you're saying 

when you consider the disproportionate factors of 

being indoors and outdoors for an equal volume of 

soil being moved.

But in this particular case for the Mound data in 

particular, large volumes of soil were being moved 

and the high-volume air sampler was positioned to 

try and capture the bulk of that -- of the dust cloud 

as the dirt was being dumped into the dump trucks 

and running there along the side of the road.

So, for equal volumes of dirt being moved, I would 

agree with you 100 percent that indoor could be 

higher, but we do have to consider the water table 

that Pat was mentioning there earlier as a factor.

But also, please consider the volume of soil that 

would be moved via an excavator versus somebody 

with a shovel trying to dig out to clear out a pipe or 

to get to the pipe.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay.

Chair Beach: Well, and don't forget they used 

backhoes, they used other mechanical digging 

devices inside that facility to excavate those pipes 

at times.

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah.

Dr. Mauro: Oh, yeah. I can help a little bit on that. 

This is John. 

There really was a two-step process. They would 

bring in contractors to crack the concrete floor in 

Building 10.

Member Kotelchuck: Uh-huh.
43

Dr. Mauro: And then there was a certain amount of 

backhoe-type work with heavy equipment to --

because they actually went down sometimes eight 

feet to find the conduits that they wanted to service 

or to excavate the dirt away so they could build new 

foundations for the new equipment that was being 

repurposed.

And then the M&C workers, those are contractors 

that came in to do the big work, the heavy removal 

work. This is a big area --

Member Kotelchuck: Uh-huh.

Dr. Mauro: -- a big indoor area. And then the 

contractors, they would go in the hole with the 

shovel and go up close and personal to the dirt and 

then perhaps cut segments of pipe.

So, it's almost like fine work, you know, fine work 

where you're not using big equipment. 

Now, you're down to a shovel and cutters that 

would remove pipeline and replace a segment of 

pipe.

So, it was -- it's really those people, the latter, that 

are the ones that we're concerned with because 

those were the M&C people that were doing the fine 

work in the --

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.

Dr. Mauro: -- subsurface environment. And it's the 

dust loading that they experienced, and the external 

exposures that they experienced, that is really at 

play.

And the reasonable question that you raise is, is it 

reasonable to assume that those people doing that 

kind of fine work -- I call it "fine work" because 

they're down to the shovel level --

Member Kotelchuck: Okay.

Dr. Mauro: -- using the 200 micrograms per cubic 
44

meter, is that a reasonable assumption coupled with 

that they're assuming that the activity as being 

resuspended is always the upper 95th percentile 

level no matter -- you know, once they're in that 

hole.

Member Kotelchuck: Uh-huh.

Dr. Mauro: But I think it's a good idea -- let's get 

the data on indoor dust loadings in your hands --

Member Kotelchuck: Okay.

Dr. Mauro: -- so you could determine that.

Member Kotelchuck: Good. Good. Good. Alright. I 

very much appreciate it.

Chair Beach: I still -- this is Josie. I still do not 

agree with using the data from the '80s and '90s, 

particularly the '90s.

The work that they were doing was to characterize 

in order to dig up and remove contamination, not to 

assess dose to workers. So, I'm not in agreement 

there.

Henry or Loretta, any questions on the first issue?

Member Anderson: I don't have any. I think it's 

been covered.

Member Valerio: This is Loretta. I don't have any.

Chair Beach: Okay. So, SC&A's recommendation is 

to close.

Is anybody ready to entertain that? I'm assuming, 

Dave, you might not be --

Member Kotelchuck: I'm not.

Chair Beach: You're looking for some more --

Member Kotelchuck: I'm not -- yeah, I want more 

and I'll look at that information. We have a meeting 

later this year and, you know, I'll have a chance to 
45

have looked at it and assess and reassess.

Member Anderson: Just so we have a way forward 

here, I think you can get those documents pretty 

quickly.

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah.

Chair Beach: Okay. So, Issue 1 is going to remain 

open, correct?

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah.

Chair Beach: Is there any other documents anybody 

needs to look at or -- I'm at a bit of a disadvantage. 

I'm going to be using the roadmap. I lost my 

computer. 

My computer keeps heating up and shutting down. 

So, there's -- I think I need a new one. But with 

everything closed down, they can't get a new one to 

me.

So, let's move on to the next --

Mr. Katz: Before we move on -- this is Ted.

Chair Beach: Okay.

Mr. Katz: So, given that Issue 1 is as big an issue as 

it is and it's remaining in progress and you may 

want an opportunity again before the August Board 

meeting to address it, and you still have Bob 

Anigstein's report on thorium even though that --

they're recommending that the Site Profile -- the 

Work Group has the chance to tackle that matter, 

whether you get to it today.

So, I'm just going to suggest -- well, you probably 

will want to schedule another Work Group meeting 

at some point for sort of late July or early August 

time frame --

Chair Beach: Correct.

Mr. Katz: -- to be able to read this, at least, and 
46

that gives plenty of time. It doesn't have to be quite 

that long if Bob Anigstein gets up on his feet sooner 

and so on, but that would be -- you have as much 

as that time to come back together again before the 

August Board meeting.

I just wanted to mention that now so that --

Chair Beach: Yeah. I don't think -- I'd rather go 

sooner than later.

Mr. Katz: Yeah. Sure. It's better to do it while things 

are fresh. Sure.

Chair Beach: Yeah.

Member Anderson: Especially on Issue 1 here, 

Dave, if after you've looked at the documents, 

you're comfortable, then I think that's about all we 

have to do on this issue. 

Now, the second one, we don't have the draft report 

yet. So --

Mr. Katz: Right. Let's see what we're left with once 

we get to the end of all this.

Member Anderson: Yeah.

Chair Beach: Okay. And, Andy, sorry if I'm -- what's 

the second one you said? We don't have the draft 

report. 

That's the thorium, correct?

Member Anderson: Yeah.

Chair Beach: Okay. Gotcha.

Dr. Mauro: And it includes welding also. Welding 

and thorium.

Chair Beach: Right. Okay. 

So, then the second finding -- I don't have my 

slides. So, someone is going to have to help me out 

here. I apologize. My laptop's gone.
47

Dr. Mauro: This is John. Yeah, the -- if you don't 

have your slides in front of you, we're looking at a 

slide that deals with HVAC maintenance.

This is the one where workers go in and replace 

filters periodically and do maintenance work inside 

HVAC ductwork and, therefore, have the potential to 

-- again, this is a scenario we built from our 

discussions.

I think we believe that there were people that did 

this kind of work and they theoretically could have 

been exposed to quite high dust levels that are 

associated when you're pulling filters and 

maintaining an HVAC system.

And so there's a slide here that describes what we 

did and the assumptions we made. And we actually 

-- SC&A did the work, and then NIOSH reviewed it 

and they accepted our results. 

And the end result is we show a listing here of the 

main parameters and what the dose rate is per hour 

while people were doing that kind of activity.

Member Anderson: Is that Slide 11?

Dr. Mauro: Does it have a number on it?

Member Kotelchuck: Slide 5.

Dr. Mauro: Slide 5. Slide 5.

Chair Beach: Alright.

Okay. Any comments on the dust loading?

(Pause.)

Chair Beach: The HVAC systems?

(Pause.)

Chair Beach: Part of my issue with it is I'm not in 

agreement with the time frame; however, I know 

that's a Site Profile issue. I do not agree with that 

part of it.
48

I also -- see, we haven't really addressed the 

explosions or the fires that took place in Building 

10.

That would have added to a lot of that dust loading. 

So, I have some issues with your numbers.

Dr. Mauro: Yeah. Let me -- I understand what 

you're saying. Just let me give you a perspective.

When we derived the dust loading, we used the 

swipe sampling data that was collected at the end of 

the AWE operation period. This was on surfaces, 

okay.

And we know that we have numbers to try to see 

what the airborne dust loading might be from 

resuspension, and that is the dust loading that 

would make its way into an HVAC system and onto 

filters.

Now, we also know that during the residual period, 

periodically the filters replaced and there was 

maintenance work.

Now, the question that you're raising is certainly a 

legitimate one. And that is, well, that only accounts 

for the residual radioactivity that was on the 

surfaces at the end of the AWE period. And we're 

assuming it's at that level all the time during the 

residual period. And we gave you the resuspension 

factor and derived what might be inside on the 

filters.

Now, you're raising the question, well, there could 

have been fires, okay. Good concern and we 

thought about that. During the residual period, we 

know, in fact, there were some incidents.

Now, the question becomes, now, what that does --

this is an interesting way to think about it. What 

that does is the fires create a lot more dust, okay, 

which dilutes down the uranium that might be on 

the filters, okay.
49

So, it's almost as if the more dust loading 

milligrams you put on the filters, the lower the 

specific activity.

So, in a funny way, you know, the fires may have --

and associated, let's say, incremental dust loading 

that would occur and then they would, of course, 

pull the filters, what that would do is that would 

create a circumstance where the specific activity in 

picocuries per gram of soot or dust on the filters 

would go down.

And, thereby --- stay with me -- thereby, when you 

assume -- now, I have picocuries per gram of dust 

on the filters and in the ductwork.

The lower the milligrams are, you know, inside, the 

more you reduce the specific activity in picocuries 

per gram. So, it's a funny thing.

Chair Beach: John, can I stop you just for a sec?

Dr. Mauro: Yeah.

Chair Beach: Hey, Ted, would you send me those 

slides to my home computer? Then I can at least 

get on this computer.

Mr. Katz: Yeah. Of course I will.

Chair Beach: Thank you.

Ms. Gogliotti: They posted on the website also.

Chair Beach: Yeah. I just thought it would be 

quicker for me to access them. Thanks.

Mr. Katz: Yeah, I'll do that.

Chair Beach: Alright. Go ahead, John.

Dr. Mauro: Well, I -- in a way, one of the things that 

troubled me is the strategy that we used is say, 

okay, we know what might be airborne in -- by 

using a resuspension factor, take what's on the 

surface, apply a resuspension factor and you get an 
50

airborne concentration of uranium in, let's say, 

picocuries per cubic meter. And that, of course --

now, you've got picocuries per cubic meter. 

Then you also say, well, we have a dust loading and 

now I'm assuming the dust loading in the room, I 

believe, was 200 or 100. I think that the average 

dust loading in the room was -- I should have the 

value written down here, but in the room now, 

okay.

So, if you know the dust loading in the room, in the 

air, not in the ductwork yet, and then you know 

what the picocuries per cubic meter is, you know 

what the milligrams or micrograms per cubic meter 

is, what you now assume is that that -- you know 

the specific activity, picocuries per gram of dust or 

soot, and that's what we're assuming is the specific 

activity that's on the filters.

Now, the guy with the filters, the guy goes inside 

and pulls the filters, generates an enormous amount 

of dust. We assume the highest dust loading that 

one considers to be breathable for any period of 

time, and there's literature on that, is 100 

milligrams -- okay, not 200 micrograms, but 100 

milligrams per cubic meter. And that's what he's 

exposed to for some period of time. I don't have the 

number of hours per year, but -- and so what 

happens is -- now, this is interesting.

When I use whatever value, the 200 micrograms 

per cubic meter, to get the specific activity, the 

lower the dust loading in terms of airborne 

concentration normally present in the room, the 

higher the specific activity.

So, theoretically, one could argue if I was -- I have 

the hat on of the petitioners. I would say, well, 

John, you know, if you used a much lower chronic 

airborne dust loading than 200 or 100 micrograms 

per cubic meter -- for example, in your room right 

now I could tell you it's probably about 2 

micrograms per cubic meter.
51

What would happen then is a specific activity would 

go up proportionately, the number of picocuries per 

gram on the dust would go up, and that would make 

it much worse when the guy changes the filter.

So, in a funny sort of way, the concern you have 

regarding fires would actually dilute down specific 

activity.

So, you know, we had to find a balance of where we 

think things are reasonable and plausible, but still 

an upper bound.

And so, I think the fire issue, in a way, argues that 

the exposures from handling the filters would go 

down the way in which we did the analysis.

I don't know if you fully followed that, but you could 

see it's almost like not intuitive when you think of it 

the way we did it.

Did you folks follow that? I don't know if everybody 

understood that. 

Mr. Katz: Yeah.

Dr. Mauro: You had to get the specific activity on 

the dust and picocuries per gram in the dust, and 

that's how -- and we had to come up with a way to 

do that.

Because once you agree that, yep, we know what 

the specific activities are to dust, now that dust now 

is sitting on a filter or sitting in a ductwork.

And if you accept that specific activity and then you 

say, but the people handling that, that dust comes 

off, it becomes airborne, and it becomes at a level 

in terms of milligrams per cubic meter that's at the 

highest level that you could have in people, without 

respiratory protection, that people could work with 

for any period of time because the air is very 

basically unbreathable. We used that work and 

there's literature on that.

So, that places an upper bound on the level of dust 
52

-- radioactivity that a maintenance worker might be 

inhaling. That's what we believe.

And I believe NIOSH looked at that work and they 

feel that that was a reasonable approach to take. 

It's a bit of a brainteaser.

Member Valerio: John, this is Loretta.

Chair Beach: Yes. Go ahead, Loretta.

Member Valerio: Can you hear me okay?

Chair Beach: Yes.

Member Valerio: John, can you explain to me, on 

average, how often these HVAC filters were changed 

out?

Dr. Mauro: Yeah. Well, we spoke to -- that was an 

important question. 

When we spoke to the workers, what we did was --

they explained that well. I think the standard 

protocol was four times a year. And, Mike, if you're 

on the line, you may be able to help me. 

When we had our discussions, however you said in 

practice, they really weren't that attentive to the 

change-outs and that very often it might have been 

only once per year.

And now, the duration -- of course, that would be 

the frequency that this is done. It's an important 

question.

So, what is the frequency that they change out the 

filters and maintain the HVAC system?

And, in addition, each time they do that, how many 

hours do they spend doing that and is it always the 

same person?

I mean, these are the questions that -- you know, 

all of that is laid out. We assumed it's always the 

same person that is doing the change-out and that's 
53

the exposure he's experienced.

No, I didn't write down here the number of hours 

each one of these were. For some reason, the 

number "4 hours per change-out" was what we --

every time they did the filter change-out is what we 

used, but I'd have to go back and check my words 

and where it's written out.

Chair Beach: John, there was like 1300 different 

filters. Some of them were large enough for men to 

enter into and clean.

Dr. Mauro: Yeah. Yeah.

Chair Beach: There was also some fan work 

associated with those. It wasn't just filter changeout --

Dr. Mauro: Yeah.

Chair Beach: -- when you're talking HVA systems. 

There was cleaning of the fan motors and then --

Dr. Mauro: Yeah.

Chair Beach: -- whatever maintenance needs to be 

done there, too.

Dr. Mauro: Yeah. What you're doing is raising a 

reasonable question, and I'll say that, regarding 

how many hours per year might a person be 

involved in this kind of activity where he was 

exposed to 100 milligrams per cubic meter of that 

dust.

Now, I -- certainly I cannot speak to -- I have to go 

back and look at what we used. But if someone 

feels that -- because remember, we are just doing 

the best we can to characterize the activities that 

took place based on our interviews.

If we have feedback that says there's a different 

number of hours per year or hours per, let's say, an 

event, you know, and the number -- what I call 

"event," when a person was involved in some type 
54

of HVAC maintenance -- I'd be the first to say, we 

need to fix that.

But I think that the picocuries per milligram 

number, that is what is the concentration of the 

uranium on the dust, and the assumption that it's --

whenever you're involved in these activities, that 

you're at 100 milligrams per cubic meter, I think 

that that's a reasonable approach.

I would be the first to agree that if there's better 

information on the duration, number of hours per 

year -- but keep in mind that whatever those hours 

per year are that we are assuming to get this dose, 

we can certainly adjust that if there's reason to 

believe that it's too low.

But, remember, we're assuming it's always the 

same person year after year that's doing that and 

event after event.

Chair Beach: Uh-huh.

Dr. Mauro: Now, that might be the case. There may 

be one guy that he -- that did that work or a team 

that always did that kind of work.

And certainly Mike can speak to that and -- but 

that's what we assumed that it was always the 

same persons -- person or persons that did that 

work year after year each time it was done.

But if you feel that the number of hours per year 

that this kind of activity took place was too low --

and we'd be glad to provide you -- I don't have it in 

front of me.

I don't know, Rose, if you have your hands on that 

number or not, but if you feel that a higher number 

-- we would say we're looking to you workers. Let 

us know what you believe to be a reasonable 

exposure duration.

But remember, we're assuming the same person or 

persons are always doing it, you know. So, that's an 
55

important consideration when making that 

judgment. I hope that helps.

Member Kotelchuck: Well, it is, but I'm still -- I'm 

still not so clear on the fire document, but I would 

like to look at it.

And I'm actually glad we have another meeting so 

that this discussion, by your focusing with the 

slides, actually is very helpful to bring together the 

issues from the many different reports -- many 

different reports, but I'd still like to look a little bit 

more at the fire issue.

Chair Beach: Dave.

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah.

Chair Beach: Dave, I don't think the fire issue came 

up in any of the reports. It's in the interview notes.

Several of the interviewees mentioned fires.

Member Kotelchuck: They certainly did. Right. 

Right.

Chair Beach: Okay.

Member Kotelchuck: But it suggests -- I think John 

is -- I thought that you were -- that that was taken 

-- if you will, thought about and taken into account.

Dr. Mauro: I did. As I indicated -- I know I should 

have written it up that way, but I did and I said, 

gee, if anything, the fires are going to dilute down -

-

Member Kotelchuck: Uh-huh.

Dr. Mauro: -- and you're going to get lower 

picocuries per milligram because the idea being --

now, I'm ready to listen to -- is it possible that 

during the fires, the actual dust that was generated 

had a higher specific activity? I would argue 

intuitively no.
56

Member Kotelchuck: Uh-huh.

Dr. Mauro: If anything, you generate a lot more 

dust and -- which is going to dilute down.

Member Kotelchuck: Right. Right. And not 

radioactive, yeah.

Dr. Mauro: You got it. You got it.

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah.

Chair Beach: And I believe there was an explosion 

at one point, too. And that goes not just for the 

HVAC, but for the facility and the dust loading.

So, I think the missing link here is individual work 

that was done for 30-plus years -- or 29-plus years.

Alright. So, any other comments or questions? 

We're kind of taking these piece by piece.

So, the HVAC maintenance, is anybody in the Work 

Group ready to close that as has been 

recommended?

Member Kotelchuck: Not really.

Chair Beach: No?

Member Kotelchuck: I'm just one person. I don't 

feel confident, but there is -- there are, frankly, 

such overarching issues here about --

Chair Beach: Yes.

Member Kotelchuck: -- reading all of the interviews 

that -- those are very much, you know, what work 

was done, how could we characterize individual --

when was the data collected.

Those are not addressed here and I understand 

those are not -- that's not what this -- these discuss 

other issues and very important ones. Anyway, I 

don't feel ready to --

Dr. Mauro: Dr. Kotelchuck.
57

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.

Dr. Mauro: I'm sorry to interrupt, but I sort of 

understand your concern. I think that one of the 

issues, and I'd really be interested in hearing this, is 

the duration. 

In other words, we made some assumptions 

regarding the duration of exposures as best we 

could judge.

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.

Dr. Mauro: I think we should hear more from the 

petitioners, you know, because really the petitioners 

are really part of this operation here.

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.

Dr. Mauro: We're trying to use their information 

correctly. And if we underestimated that duration of 

handling HVAC activities as too low, well, it's very 

important that we hear more about that.

Chair Beach: John?

Dr. Mauro: Yeah.

Chair Beach: Let me interrupt just for a second 

because I think that gets into the Site Profile realm, 

if I'm not mistaken.

And while I do want to hear from the petitioners, 

we're still wrestling with the SEC issue and I don't 

think we've even come close to deciding, as a Work 

Group, where we are with that.

So, am I incorrect here?

Dr. Mauro: No, I think you're correct.

Member Kotelchuck: Right. Yes.

Chair Beach: And I think we can get to the duration 

--

Dr. Mauro: Do the other issues first.
58

Chair Beach: Yeah. I think we can get to the 

duration question, and a very important question, a 

little bit later if you don't mind holding off on that.

Member Kotelchuck: Josie, we need to go through 

those interviews because the other -- I mean, the 

explosion is one thing, but the fires, what was the 

extent of those fires? Did they lead to --

Chair Beach: Well, those interviews, in my opinion, I 

know SC&A and NIOSH have used parts and pieces 

of them, but there's a lot of information in those 

interviews that go -- take us back to Issue 1 that 

we've already discussed.

Dr. Mauro: Josie, let me help out a little bit. I'm 

trying to, you know, look at this as if I'm looking at 

it from the outside and I was criticizing my own 

work, and I can do that.

The question is we -- I invented a strategy, a 

specific activity approach which was never done 

before where I tried to come up with what might be 

a concentration on the dust that's on the filters and 

in the ductwork and in the fans and everywhere, 

and I used an approach that I sort of developed.

I'd very much like to hear feedback from the Board 

on whether that strategy, that fundamental 

approach to coming at a problem like this --

because I think it's important.

If this turns out to be something that the Board and 

NIOSH feels is reasonable for coming at a problem 

like this, I think it will add some value to the 

program because it could have applicability -- we 

find ourselves confronted with this problem on this 

project, but I could see it having applicability 

broadly.

Mainly the fundamental approach that I used, you 

know -- anyway, that could theoretically be an SEC 

issue that is do you think that that's a scientifically 

reasonable way to come at a problem like this.
59

So, I would say, you know, yeah. And now the more 

I think about it, the more I think it is an SEC issue.

I originally -- see, I believe that this is a good way 

to come at the problem, but I'd be very receptive to 

any thoughts others had on whether that strategy 

works or not. So, I mean, I'm trying to be helpful.

Chair Beach: Thank you. I don't know if anybody is 

ready to -- or looked back far enough at how you 

came to these numbers, John.

I think you used a model that was a preexisting 

model, correct, and then it brought it into this 

scenario? Is that --

Dr. Mauro: Yeah. I basically took a basic, 

fundamental model that was accepted under OTIB70. 

And then I expanded it by marrying it to the dust 

loading and the OTIB-70 model -- it's something we 

have never done before -- to get the specific 

activity.

We've never done that where we get the specific 

activity of the dust and then use that as the basis 

for an inhalation dose calculation.

That approach, over the years I've been on the 

program, I don't think we ever used and I'd like to 

hear some feedback. 

And I think it's important that there's a degree of 

comfort that, yeah, that approach can be used and 

works here or there are flaws in it.

Mr. Katz: Well, John, this is all going to end up in 

front of the whole Board in August.

Dr. Mauro: Yeah.

Mr. Katz: So, you're welcome -- and I'm sure you'll 

be helping Josie with the presentation to the whole 

Board.
60

So, you can really make a point of that issue as a 

crosscutting issue not just for the SEC, but for the 

program, in general, as a method, but you can do 

that then.

Dr. Mauro: Sure. Okay.

Mr. Katz: I mean, you have just three Board -- four 

Board Members here.

Dr. Mauro: Right.

Chair Beach: Thank you. 

We have a unique issue here, I feel, with M&C 

because we have a NIOSH method and an SC&A 

method in several instances. 

And so, that confuses and makes the issue even 

harder to think out in -- I know in my mind. I don't 

know about the other Board Members here.

Member Kotelchuck: Well, Josie, I'm going to --

Mr. Katz: Dave, before you jump in, I was just 

going to say, Josie, I mean, this is another reason 

why I think, again, in August, you know, it would be 

to your advantage to get -- that you get feedback 

from the rest of the Board on that.

Chair Beach: Yes. I agree.

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah. I mean, this whole --

there's a broader perspective that I bring to this 

that hangs over all of this detailed discussion and a 

situation that seems to be unique.

I mean, I try to go over -- we have a situation in 

which we have no data on the workers or the 

petitioners. 

We have -- on the petitioners themselves, we have 

no work plan. We don't have good records about 

what the people did.

Now, I have in the past on the Board, I have 
61

approved determining that we can make -- we can 

reasonably assess exposure to people for whom we 

had essentially no data, no personal data, but those 

were cases where people were working on a -- more 

or less a manufacturing situation in which a person 

did repetitive work in some case.

Here is a case where I feel the people are coming in 

and doing all sorts of work. And I was particularly 

struck by the person who said, you know, if you're 

an electrician and you don't have a lot of work and 

the plumbers are busy, you become a plumber.

Mr. Katz: Right.

Member Kotelchuck: People are doing 

troubleshooting of all kinds. And troubleshooters, of 

course, you know, they could go home and --

according to this, they could go home at night and 

not know what they were going to work on in the 

morning.

So, it's not a -- it's not like one job that they do 

repetitively again and again. They're 

troubleshooters. So, to me it's an unusual situation.

We don't -- I don't recall ever having taken in 

maintenance workers as a special group, but it does 

appear to me that that may be the case here.

And I -- so, this discussion doesn't allow me to -- or 

put it this way: Our group has to decide whether 

the lack of information that we have about 

individual cases and, you know, what I hear from 

the -- trying to make an assessment is, well, 

everybody does all the same. We'll put in -- we'll 

put in everybody does work on the roof, everybody 

welds, everybody -- and that's most clearly not the 

case, but we don't know what the case is.

We don't know what the work is that individuals do 

and yet we're saying, oh, we can make individual 

assessments.

And so, I am just troubled and I'm looking at this as 
62

a distinctive case. I don't know about unique. I 

haven't been on the Board forever, but it's such a 

distinctive case and I don't feel that I can 

reasonably say worker -- maintenance worker X did 

this. We don't know.

Chair Beach: I just -- go ahead.

Mr. Katz: I was just going to say, Dave, just one 

thing, one element in what you're saying that I do 

want to speak to because it is something that's very 

common in this program, is applying a worst-case 

scenario to a broad group of people not knowing 

who it actually applies to.

Member Kotelchuck: Uh-huh.

Mr. Katz: And that gets done all the time. So, in 

effect, I mean, what this is doing is very similar to 

what's done all over this program, which is you take 

sort of the worst scenario, you don't know who it 

applies to within a very large group, so you give it 

to everybody.

And this has been done umpteen times in this 

program. It's just that there are multiple scenarios 

that are being applied here, but they're all being 

applied on that same principle.

Member Kotelchuck: Well, I agree with you on that 

that we -- that we have done that. But the places 

where we have done it in AWE facilities particularly, 

I've always had the feeling that people do a 

particular job. There is a particular groundedness to 

where people are.

The folks we're dealing with here do everything and 

we can't pick out what's -- who's working on the 

subsurface and who's -- so, it does seem, to me, 

different because these are troubleshooting people 

doing everything rather than the usual AWE where 

people are working, more or less, in a constant 

exposure situation.

And we do our best and we do assign -- we do 
63

assign, you know, everybody --

Mr. Katz: Dave, I would just say in many of the 

AWEs there are many different jobs and yet we're 

applying the single exposures across the Board.

At many of the AWEs, that's actually a very similar 

case.

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah.

Mr. Katz: I don't want to prolong that, but certainly 

--

Member Kotelchuck: Uh-huh.

Mr. Katz: -- the staff could give you umpteen 

examples of this whether it's many different roles 

under the roof, but similar --

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.

Mr. Katz: -- exposures could apply to everybody. It 

happened at ESI. It happened at many places.

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah.

Mr. Katz: So, that element of this is not that 

unusual.

Member Kotelchuck: I agree. Okay.

Mr. Katz: Okay.

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah.

Mr. Katz: Go ahead. I really -- I'm just trying to --

Member Kotelchuck: No. No. We're trying to 

establish the upper bound and then that is applied 

to everyone.

Dr. Mauro: This is John. I might be able to help out 

a little bit here.

Think about all the workers working, let's say, 2,000 

hours per year. And we say, okay, well, we know 
64

that there were some workers that spent two 

months per year in the hole under Building 10 and 

they're going to get a dose for that 2-month period, 

right?

Member Kotelchuck: Uh-huh.

Dr. Mauro: Good. So, if that's all they did, that is, 

those workers were the guys that were in the hole, 

they would get their two months' worth of exposure 

and then we'd add on what I call the baseline 

exposure, which is the conventional OTIB-70 

resuspension from surfaces approach --

Member Kotelchuck: Right.

Dr. Mauro: -- and you add the two together.

But then you say, well, wait a minute. Wait a 

minute. There might -- the same guys going 

underground in Building 10, they may have also 

been the crew that went underground, let's say, for 

one month a year -- and I don't have the numbers 

in front of me, but it might have been -- so now 

we've got three months.

So, you know what we're going to do? We're going 

to give them the two months for Building 10, we're 

going to give them one month in the subsurface 

environment outdoors. 

So, now we got -- we've covered them for three 

months. The same people. And this is everybody. 

Now, when I say "the same people," now this 

means everybody.

Then we say, wait a minute. Wait a minute. We also 

know that maybe a certain number of hours per 

year they were doing HVAC maintenance. I'll make 

a number up. One. One month. 

So, now we got two months on subsurface Building 

10. We got two months, one month, whatever, 

subsurface outdoors. We got one month working in 

the HVAC. 
65

So, now, all of a sudden we got two, three, four, 

five months -- five months people are getting these 

different doses, okay.

And then we add in -- that means we've got -- the 

rest of the year they're exposed to the baseline, 

which is always there, and you add them all up. 

And that would be the maximum dose that you 

could assign to anybody and we're going to give 

that to everybody.

I mean, that's -- see, I thought a lot about this. I 

say, how do you deal with this? So, you're filling up 

the year with months. 

And so, what you do is, let's pile on all the months 

from all the scenarios so that we maximize it as if 

every single worker did all that until you fill up your 

2,000 hours per year. And then you give that dose, 

and you give that dose to everybody.

You see how I'm thinking about this, how you 

combine all this?

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.

Dr. Mauro: Yes.

Chair Beach: John, you mentioned a baseline dose. 

What are you meaning there?

Dr. Mauro: Oh, the original analysis that was in the 

first SEC Evaluation Report simply said that, well, 

we have this surface contamination all over the 

building in Building 10 everywhere, you know, 

becquerels per square meter on the floor.

And we know what that is because of the extensive 

swipes and surveys performed at the end of the 

AWE period.

So, at the beginning of the residual period, our 

starting point is we've got all this contamination, 

could be gross alpha -- let's say it's gross alpha for 

a minute, okay? We have the numbers. You're 
66

saying, well, that's always there. 

So, people who are working in Building 10 are 

always going to be exposed to that, okay, which is 

resuspension factor and inhalation.

Now, to go to the thorium/uranium issue, the plan 

would be, well, we could assume that they're only 

measuring gross alpha, but you could assume that 

it's all thorium, you could assume that it's all 

uranium, whatever gives you the worst dose.

But the point being you've got a baseline that even 

if people were not doing any maintenance work of 

any kind, they didn't do that, that would be the 

dose they get from the direct exposure, 

resuspension and inhalation from surface 

contamination. And so, that's what I mean by a 

baseline.

But then you say, well, wait a minute. There were 

incremental time periods where these very same 

people may have been involved in specialized, 

relatively short-term incremental repurposing and 

maintenance activities.

And now, you'll take a two-month period and say, 

well, for two months the person is in the subsurface 

environment where he's getting much higher 

exposures than the baseline, okay.

So, we're going to say, okay, well, for that person 

we would not give him 12 months' worth of baseline 

exposure. We'll give him 10 months of baseline 

exposure and 2 months of subsurface work in 

Building 10.

So, you're always -- what you're doing is you're 

taking out -- you're relocating the guy, okay.

He's not just walking around anymore. Now, he's in 

the hole for two months. So, that means ten 

months he's walking around.

But then you could keep going with that and say, 
67

but wait a minute. In addition to that two months, 

he may also spend another two months outside 

under -- in a hole and he gets that dose.

So, what you do is you're chipping away at the 

baseline and adding in for those time periods, the 

time periods he's involved in these other activities 

where he gets unique, specialized exposures which 

are clearly higher than the exposures you get from 

the baseline on a per-hour basis. You see it?

Mr. Katz: Yes.

Dr. Mauro: Conceptually, that's how we're looking at 

it.

Chair Beach: Okay. So, we have some other slides 

to go through, other issues.

Anything else on the HVAC?

Roof and overheard, I know we're waiting on the 

welding/thorium issue. Any other comments on the 

-- I know these are all separated out, but they're all 

in one building. So, they're all intermixed, of course.

Roof and overhead, Andy, Loretta, Dave, anything?

Mr. Elliott: Excuse me, Josie. I apologize for 

interrupting. This is Mike Elliott, petitioner.

Chair Beach: Go ahead.

Mr. Elliott: Mr. Katz, I apologize for interrupting, but 

I do have to run and start -- I'm actually leading my 

conference call at 1:30. So, I have to get that fired 

up on GoToWebinar. So, I'm going to have to leave 

the call. 

May I make just a few very brief remarks?

Mr. Katz: Of course. Of course.

Chair Beach: Yes. Go ahead.

Mr. Elliott: Thank you.
68

Mr. Katz: Sure.

Mr. Elliott: Yeah. So, I would like to just, you know, 

throw my 100 percent support behind the questions 

that the Board Members are asking. I think they're 

all very legitimate questions.

You know, particularly I think when Josie talks 

about applying data from the '90s that was intended 

to help us discern the limits of excavation for a 

remediation project and then trying to apply that to 

dose reconstruction, I think that's questionable.

I think Dr. Kotelchuck has also done a great job on 

numerous occasions, you know, describing these 

workers more like emergency response workers or 

troubleshooters that were not encountering any kind 

of, you know, scenarios that were -- could be 

described as routine or, you know, every scenario 

was different.

So, notwithstanding the -- you know, the 

tremendous efforts that SC&A and NIOSH have 

gone through to try to come up with all these 

different exposure scenarios and models, I still 

contend, as I stated, you know, on January 9th in 

my oral testimony, that any numerical estimate -- I 

reject any numerical estimate as valid.

In my opinion, the only honest statement we can 

make is that we cannot accurately estimate the 

nature, frequency or duration of exposures that 

would account for the maximum radiation dose that 

could have been incurred implausible circumstances 

by any member of the Class.

So, you know, I'm just going to plead and beseech 

the Board Members to continue down that line of 

questioning.

And I'll just mention that there is apparently at least 

one other colleague who's listening in on the call. 

He's been texting me the whole time.

He's concerned that -- this is a gentleman by the 
69

name of Darrell Hanlon. He's concerned that, you 

know, some of the issues he raised in his oral 

testimony of June 2018 have never been addressed. 

And he was promised, at that time, that somebody 

would get back to him and, you know, further 

explore the exposures that he feels he was exposed 

to that he feels are not being addressed by any of 

our models. So, I'll just put that out there.

Chair Beach: Will you repeat his name?

Mr. Elliott: Yeah. It's Darrell Hanlon. If you like, I 

can send to Ted Katz and to [identifying 

information redacted] his contact information. 

And I'm happy to send it to you as well.

Chair Beach: Thank you.

Mr. Katz: That would be great. That would be great. 

And I suspect actually that SC&A may have it if 

they've interviewed him, but go ahead and send it 

and I'll --

Mr. Elliott: Okay. Alright. Well, thank you very much 

for your time.

Chair Beach: Yeah. Thanks for hanging in there with 

Mr. Elliott: Sure.

Mr. Katz: Thank you. 

Mr. Elliott: Bye-bye.

Mr. Katz: Bye.

Chair Beach: Okay. So, we are back looking at the 

slides. Slide 6, the roof and overhead. Comments 

from the Work Group Members?

(Pause.)

Chair Beach: Nothing new to ask or add. And then 

the welding work?

(Pause.)
70

Chair Beach: How about the outdoor and above 

ground external exposures?

(Pause.)

Chair Beach: I feel like going back to the interview 

notes again. Workers were in these areas, the 

above ground -- or I guess I should say the 

underground is what I was going to comment on, 

but we're not to that yet.

Anything on the above ground?

(Pause.)

Chair Beach: I feel like the workers dug through 

these underground burial grounds putting in 

buildings.

There's many testimonies -- and I know we only 

have 12 interviews, so -- and there's a lot of 

material in those 12 that states they went in, they 

dug up lines.

If they needed to dig up a line, it didn't matter 

where it was. They went through burial grounds or 

around them.

So, I guess I don't -- I take issue with some of this, 

these numbers in the models in those cases.

Dr. Mauro: Could I -- I'm sorry to interrupt you, 

Josie, but I want to help out sharpening the 

question.

Really -- and this is what we do. We have data 

showing coring from outdoor data, let's say, a 

subsurface, right?

Chair Beach: Coring in individual locations?

Dr. Mauro: Right. In other words, people go in 

individual -- there's coring data and we --

Chair Beach: Right.

Dr. Mauro: -- look at as much of the data and we 
71

have it all laid out, how much we have, where it was 

taken.

And what we said is, hm, a person doing subsurface 

work -- it's sort of like what we did in indoors and 

said a person doing subsurface work would go out 

there for some time period at some frequency for 

some number of hours and where are we going to 

say he is?

We said, well, we probably want to take the 

average. That is, he could have been gone many 

times in -- and he didn't always go into the location 

where the highest bore hole or coring information 

is, but we're going to assume that.

That is, every time the guy went down into the hole, 

he always went down -- the same guy always went 

down into the hole that was at the upper 95th 

percentile of all the boring data.

Now, I say to myself, well, you know, you really 

can't do worse than that except if you don't accept 

the boring data as being representative of what the 

conditions were during the residual period because, 

remember, the boring data was collected much 

later.

This all goes back to that assumption, but I think 

the given -- if you were to accept that, you could 

use that substantive data.

The approach we use would say, listen, yeah, the 

guy's going in the hole outdoors now. And he's 

always going in -- the same guy is always going in 

the same hole and it's the 95th percentile highest 

hole of all the data that we have regarding holes.

Now, a reasonable question is, do you have enough 

data taken in enough different locations where 

you've captured the upper end? That's a reasonable 

question to ask.

I'm trying to really sharpen the issue.
72

Chair Beach: Uh-huh.

Dr. Mauro: And then, you know, did you assume 

when he went in the hole -- okay, let's say you 

accept that. Yep, that seems to be reasonable.

Then you say, well, listen, we're assuming he did 

that these many times per year. And each time he 

did it, he had this dust loading, you know, and he 

had this breathing rank. See, this is all that goes 

into this.

Now, to me, the -- if I was sitting in your shoes, I 

would say, listen, I want to really be sure that we 

got this right.

Did the SC&A and NIOSH, did they find the -- or are 

they using an assumed worst-case bore hole that --

you know, and the question is, well, maybe not 

because of course we didn't sample -- no one 

sampled the whole place, but we have a lot of 

samples, cores, and we use the upper 95th 

percentile.

Is it possible that we might have missed another 

one that might have been higher? Sure. 

But is it possible that if we did find that -- and what 

we did do is assume that that high-end number is 

always the same person going into that hole all the 

time whenever he goes into a hole.

That sort of makes you more comfortable that, 

yeah, probably that's your -- you really can't get 

much worse than that, you know, that he's always 

going in that hole and it's always the same person. 

The reality is he's always going into a different hole 

and it's usually -- not usually, it may often be 

another person. I'm talking year after year after 

year over a 20-year period.

Member Kotelchuck: Uh-huh.

Dr. Mauro: So, you got to put all this combination of 

assumptions together and you go after every single 
73

one of them, if you want, and that would be 

reasonable.

But you think about the combination of assumptions 

and now it becomes a judgment call, and that's -- to 

me, if I was on the Board, that's a judgement I'd be 

-- I hate to do that, but I feel as if I've been around 

so long and I understand this problem.

And, believe me, when I look at these things and I 

think about what we're doing, I think about it as if I 

was on the Board and I have to convince myself 

that what I'm doing is the right way to do this and 

it's fair to the workers.

And I think that when you take -- as you have to 

take all those assumptions together, the real big 

one is always at the 95th percentile, and the same 

worker all the time is doing that work at the 95th 

percentile location and, boy, that gives me comfort.

If I was a worker, I would say to myself, yeah, I 

think I'm being treated fairly. Believe me, I actually 

think that way.

If I was the -- when I say, geez, I think you guys 

gave us the high-end doses -- and we always go 

back to Josie's concern and the petitioner's concern. 

Can you use the 1990 data as a substitute for the 

1970s and '80s?

And we -- and that's where I think everything 

comes down to and, you know, we give you our 

reasons why we think that it's a bounding approach 

because of the strategy used.

But therein lies the heart of the issues here, you 

know, whether it's talking about Building 10 where 

the -- oh, by the way, another thing that I would 

think about and I would ask the actual -- the 

petitioners, did we miss the boat? We're right back 

to the core.

When we listen to them, what we came away with is 

that subsurface work in Building 10, that's it. 
74

That's where the -- I mean, that's where if you're 

going to say where were the highest doses, it's that, 

you know.

I'd be the first to admit there may be -- and so, we 

looked at all these other things and we found that to 

be way above the worst job you could have to get 

the highest dose and of course we're giving that to 

everybody.

Now, I'd be the first to say there may be other jobs 

that we missed, when we talked to those 12 

workers, that may have been worse than that.

It's possible, but, you know -- and that would be a 

real good question to ask, you know, this interaction 

with the -- we've never had such incredible 

interaction with the claimants to understand the 

problem.

And we did everything we can to try to understand 

it and then model it, but there may -- now, if 

there's information out there that says there may 

have been some other jobs where they might have 

been exposed for more prolonged period of times up 

close and personal than the Building 10 subsurface, 

we want to know about that.

Anyway, I wanted to have that on the record.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay. Yeah.

Chair Beach: Okay. So, where are we?

Any other Work Group discussions on any topics? 

Outdoor?

Mr. Katz: Well, let me just ask you, Josie, while 

you're on the outdoor issues, I mean, what more do 

you want?

Do you either need more work on it or someone 

needs to think about some issues related to it or do 

you want to resolve it if there is no more to do and 

you guys feel like you've had time to think about it?
75

Chair Beach: I think that you all need to go over to 

the substitute data issue because I think John is 

correct.

I think that is the key to all -- Building 10, 4, 5, all 

the different -- and I know Building 10 is the 

biggest, but the burial grounds had a significant 

amount of exposure possibility. So, I think you 

really need to go to substitute data.

Mr. Katz: Uh-huh.

Chair Beach: You know, I hate to push. Are people 

ready to say, yeah, we think we have an SEC here, 

or, no, we need more?

I hate to just go to another meeting without hearing 

from at least the four of us where we're at.

I mean, we've had many, many meetings and it's --

I'm not clear.

Mr. Katz: Right. And so, if you remain sort of 

uncomfortable sort of putting the stake in the 

ground about this with the outdoor issue, again, you 

can also hear from the rest of the Board on this 

matter. So, that's the other way to get at it without 

having to resolve it by the Work Group.

And if you feel like it's part and parcel and you 

really can't distinguish this from Building 10 in 

terms of your uncertainty about this going back 

retrospectively, then, you know, you can just sort of 

tie this with the Building 10 matter and wait to hear 

from the other Board Members or whatever, or wait 

until the next Work Group meeting if that's going to 

help you.

Chair Beach: Well, you know, Ted -- and I know 

that what you're saying this is all tied together.

So, it's -- we either accept -- I mean, everything 

we're doing here is modeled. And we can say a 

month, in two months those are Site Profile issues, 

but we have to determine if we're going to accept 
76

the models and accept that there is an SEC or 

there's not an SEC.

And I guess that's where I'm at is we -- and we are 

closer to it. We can take all of this to the Board, but 

we're closer to it.

And if we aren't willing or can't make a decision 

based on what we know now after all these 

meetings and all the materials, whether we think 

they're an SEC issue or not, I guess that's kind of 

where I'm at.

Mr. Katz: Right. Well, the Board, just to be clear, in 

August when you bring this to the Board again, it's 

not an action item to the Board at that point.

So, I mean, the opportunity from the Board is just 

to hear if they have other issues to think about 

before you actually make a decision because 

certainly the Work Group should be ultimately 

making recommendations to the Board before the 

Board acts on it.

Chair Beach: Exactly.

Mr. Katz: So, you could have another Work Group 

meeting after August to settle your matter if you 

don't settle it before, yeah.

Member Kotelchuck: You know, Josie, I feel like 

from the beginning going all the way back to Pete 

Darnell, who was working on this earlier and taking 

the lead for NIOSH, it's obvious, I mean, that it 

makes sense always NIOSH has to try to think 

about how best it can estimate exposures. And so, 

they always come up, and rightfully so, with their 

best estimates. 

We have always, in our meetings, we've been 

basically led by the technical discussion of the --

how the calculations are done and whether they're 

adequate, but I feel like we've never, as a Working 

Group, talked together about our broader concerns 

about data, about the, really, it seems to me, very 
77

large uncertainties that this petition presents to us.

And there's a way in which I wish we could talk as a 

group about the overarching concerns that really 

make us ambivalent about whether these 

calculations amount to some reasonable assessment 

of the individual exposures.

I don't know how to do that, but I also -- I would 

say I don't feel that leading off with a technical 

discussion deals with issues that we were concerned 

with when it was brought up at the Board meeting a 

couple of years ago.

I don't know how other Working Group folks feel.

Chair Beach: I hear you and I think that's why I'm 

pushing this a little bit.

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah.

Chair Beach: For me, I feel like there's a lack of 

good source data. There's a complete lack of any 

monitoring data coupled with -- all the assumptions, 

all the uncertainties and the unusual circumstances, 

Metals and Controls for 29 years.

We can model it, but models are only as good as 

the source. And I think the missing piece here is the 

work that was actually done.

We can throw a month, a two-month Site Profile 

stuff, but I think you're right, Dave. I think we 

haven't had that discussion.

And this is the opportunity to do that. We're all on 

the phone.

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah.

Member Anderson: And this residual period is 

unusual compared to the other residual periods 

we've covered at other sites.

Chair Beach: I agree.
78

Member Kotelchuck: Oh, absolutely.

Member Anderson: It's really a surrogate exposure 

issue, kind of, and you can always come up with a 

high value, but is it realistic?

Chair Beach: Well, and I keep hearing small doses, 

small doses. And, to me, that --

(Telephonic interference.)

Chair Beach: That was after the rest of the lack of 

data and then I think Dave, you talked after I did.

Member Kotelchuck: And was that when I raised the 

issue that we have been led by the technical 

discussions --

Chair Beach: Yes --

Member Kotelchuck: -- of NIOSH trying to make the 

best estimate it could of the exposure, but that 

there were really -- and that led the discussion. But 

the larger concerns that many of us had, the overarching concerns about the distinction, if not 

uniqueness, at least the distinction of this particular 

workforce where they were doing troubleshooting 

jobs and measurements were made of different --

very few over a period of 30 years, that we needed 

to discuss our over-arching concerns and that is not 

the technical discussion. 

The technical discussion, well, the technical work 

has to be done. We can never consider an SEC 

without NIOSH and SC&A trying to determine as 

best it can what the exposures were. That's an 

obligation that the Board and the program has. And 

they're trying to do it and we've been listening to 

that, that there are a bunch of concerns that the 

Working Group folks have and that -- I wish we 

could talk as, and I said, I wish we could talk as a 

Working Group about those larger concerns. 

And I believe, Josie, you said yes, well, we are here 

now. Maybe we can discuss it. And that's the point 
79

at which I think the court reporter broke in.

Is that a reasonable summary?

Mr. Katz: Well, that gets us most of the way there 

and then John and Rose just clarified the issue 

about -- go ahead, John and Rose. Talk about how 

these -- there are four other cases.

Member Kotelchuck: Three.

Mr. Katz: Three other cases for the residual period 

with unusual --

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Mr. Katz: Right. Let them recount that.

Chair Beach: And before they do that, I think Andy 

is the one that actually brought up the unusualness 

of the AWE sites. Is that correct, Andy?

Member Anderson: Yes, that's right. Yes, I just said 

that the real issue here is this is an unusual site and 

therefore, the appropriateness of kind of surrogate 

or alternative data is really, is this the appropriate 

data that can be used because there isn't really a 

comparable site to use. And then we went on from 

there. 

So I would certainly underscore that if the decision 

is doses can be reconstructed using these methods, 

I think that the technical way it's been gone about is 

probably acceptable, but the issue is before you go 

to do those calculations, is it really appropriately 

comparison.

Mr. Katz: Okay, John and Rose --

Member Kotelchuck: I would be very interested in 

seeing how the other sites that were approved, I 

think that's really the case that needs to be made, 

is this similar to those, and therefore our reluctance 

to kind of go outside the box on this is appropriate.

Dr. Mauro: This is John. I think there's something 
80

we did not do. NIOSH did not do and we did not do 

and it just dawned on me, based on this 

conversation.

Ms. Gogliotti: John, just for the court reporter 

though, SC&A and the other thing that we discussed 

was that SC&A has reviewed approximately fifty --

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Dr. Mauro: Yes. Yes.

Ms. Gogliotti: Of those, only three extended 

coverage into the sites' residual periods and those 

three were Ames Laboratory, Norton Company, and 

Vitro Manufacturing.

Chair Beach: And those are of the AWE sites, 

correct?

Ms. Gogliotti: Correct.

Dr. Mauro: And I think picking up from there, 

because that's where we left off, was the thing we 

didn't do is okay, so clearly, there were three sites 

where things were so unusual during the residual 

period that we felt -- the Board felt it appropriate to 

grant the SEC. And the other 47, apparently, there 

was sufficient information to deny the SEC.

Now, what would be of value for something that 

NIOSH probably may want to do or certainly SC&A 

could do is okay, good. Let's see how those 

decisions were made, what were the circumstances 

under which they were either granted or denied, 

and where does this site, M&C, fit into that array of 

decisions? Are we leaning more toward a type of 

circumstance that is closer to when it was granted 

or are we leaning more toward a type of 

circumstance where it was denied? 

We do not have that information and it would be 

useful because it is important to be consistent in 

how we went about our decision-making. And that 

may be of value.
81

Member Kotelchuck: That may well be. That may 

well be.

Mr. Rutherford: This is LaVon Rutherford. I don't 

mind doing that considering I was the lead on two 

of those three. I know what the reasons were on 

those, but we can put something together and 

provide that to the Board.

Chair Beach: Okay.

Member Anderson: Good to have that to start.

Member Kotelchuck: That would be very helpful. I 

would find that -- I would appreciate that very 

much.

Chair Beach: Okay, any other discussion? So 

Loretta, any comments?

Member Valerio: Well, I appreciate that LaVon is 

offering -- it was LaVon, correct, that was offering 

to send the information on those other AWE sites?

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Chair Beach: -- send the information but put it 

together. Yes.

Member Valerio: Right. Yes, I remember some of 

Ames, but the other two I don't recall at all. So I 

think that information would be beneficial for all of 

us as far as the Work Group moving forward on 

whether we need to close some of these or you 

know, keep them in progress a little bit longer.

The other comment I had was when you said, you 

know, these exposure scenarios were small, 

potential small dose, and in my mind, yes, they may 

have been small, but they were also chronic if it was 

the same person conducting the work over and over 

and over again.

Dr. Mauro: By the way, the small dose is that. In 

other words, when we assume the same person 

over and over and over again, that's the annual 
82

dose we're giving, that is we say this many millirem 

per year for the subsurface environment Building 10 

which is by far the biggest one. That would be the 

annual dose for that same person being exposed 

over and over.

The same thing goes for the others. In some places 

we expressed it in terms of millirem per hour. Of 

course, you could then -- and then we said we could

convert that to what it would be per year, but based 

on the assumption of the number of hours per year. 

But you know, that's something that we did do as 

best we could to say what would be the total annual 

dose that a person doing this work would be. 

So yes, we did do that. We didn't just say, you 

know, an individual event. For example, in the case 

of the subsurface environment, the two months 

really is two months' worth of the person being in 

the hole, you know, and that would be his annual 

dose from working in the subsurface environment, 

two months, the same person always going in the 

hole. 

And then of course, the question then becomes, all 

right, if you wanted to reconstruct his dose, what 

would you do? You would say --

Chair Beach: John --

Dr. Mauro: Yes. I want to make sure that's clear, 

because that's something that's easy to 

misunderstood.

Chair Beach: Okay, sorry.

Dr. Mauro: That's all I wanted to say.

Member Kotelchuck: Even this discussion, brief as 

it is, I think is helpful in that if this group were to 

recommend to the Board an SEC, I think it would 

have an obligation to be able to tell the Board why 

this case is so different from other cases that, that 

is that we would grant an SEC. In other words, if we 

choose to go along with the approach that has been 
83

going -- that has been made, and John has 

addressed SC&A and NIOSH extensively, but if we 

have, if some of us have concerns that there are --

that there's something distinct, we would have to 

convince the Board that -- we would have to argue 

to the Board why this is different than the other 

cases.

So getting the response -- getting the background 

for the three cases where we have decided to grant 

an SEC in special circumstances would be very 

helpful.

Chair Beach: I agree.

Member Kotelchuck: And in a sense that case has to 

be made even -- even if we, you know -- well, the 

case has to be made. And the Working Group has to 

make that. It has to make the case either if it's for 

an SEC, why is this distinctive? And if it isn't for an 

SEC, then why, then we have to affirm that the 

approach that John has outlined and discussed is 

adequate.

Chair Beach: Correct. 

Mr. Katz: Right, and just to always keep in mind at 

the end of the day, the Board's basis has to have a 

science basis.

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.

Mr. Katz: So the comparison I think is important 

and I think that's great that you're addressing that 

issue of sort of -- but at the end of the day you also 

have to put a substantive scientific basis either way 

for adding or for not adding.

Member Kotelchuck: Right, absolutely, but a 

scientific judgment can be the data is not accurate 

enough.

Chair Beach: Or adequate --

Member Kotelchuck: In our judgment.
84

Mr. Katz: Well that's far too vague, Dave, that's not 

going to cut it.

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.

Mr. Katz: That the data is not accurate enough, but 

you understand what the basis has to be.

Member Kotelchuck: Yes. Yes.

Chair Beach: And I do think it's important for the 

Work Group to come to the Board with a 

recommendation if at all possible. I don't know any 

situation where a Work Group has not come to the 

Board with some kind of a recommendation. I think 

that's important. I appreciate this discussion.

Member Kotelchuck: Yes. And I also feel an 

obligation as a Working Group Member, we've been 

over this now for a few years, right, if we look back 

at all the documents. And we have got to make a 

decision. The Board has to move. We have many 

different plans, many different positions, and we 

have an obligation as Board Members to decide. And 

I suppose it could be an unusual situation or could 

be, in fact, a unique situation where we come to 

them and say well, this is what we think. We have 

differences of opinion. Here's one side. Here's the 

other. You decide. I guess it can be -- because the 

Board actually decides, we recommend. 

Mr. Katz: Right. Well we've done that too, actually, 

Dave. Maybe not in your history, but we've done 

that in the past.

Member Kotelchuck: No, it's not in my history, no.

Mr. Katz: Yes, but we have. Work Groups have done 

exactly what you're saying as well. So it's all 

possible.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay.

Chair Beach: Okay, so any other comments before I 

move to see if petitioners have any other -- I know 

Mike has gone --
85

Mr. Katz: Mike is gone, so --

Petitioner Comments

Chair Beach: I knew there was another petitioner 

listening in. I didn't know if he wanted to make 

comments, so I thought I would at least ask.

Mr. Hanlon: Yes, can you hear me?

Chair Beach: Yes, is this Darrell?

Mr. Hanlon: Yes, it's Darrell.

Chair Beach: Darrell, would you like make 

comments?

Mr. Hanlon: Only that I was not present during -- I 

don't know the members who you interviewed, so if 

it's possible, when you get my contact information 

from Mike, if you could send me their comments I 

can contact them myself. I have set up --

Chair Beach: Darrell --

Mr. Hanlon: -- a Facebook page --

Chair Beach: Mike probably has -- I'm sorry to 

interrupt, Darrell. This is Josie again. I think Mike 

probably has all of that information. You could get it 

fairly quickly through him if that's possible.

Mr. Hanlon: Okay.

Chair Beach: I think --

Mr. Katz: Let me jump in here, Darrell, because 

there are some things that aren't actually okay. You 

cannot -- you can -- so there are -- there should be 

on the public site a summary of the comments that 

have been given from the workers. But you will not 

be able to get their individual comments because 

their privacy is being protected, Darrell. So you may 

be able to get in touch with individual workers and 

talk to them individually for sure by speaking to 

Mike. But you won't be able to get from us their 
86

individual comments because we have to protect 

their privacy. That's just a requirement on us.

Mr. Hanlon: I understand, but the comments are 

without name, but the comments are still public, 

yes.

Mr. Katz: Yes, they're only summarized in public 

and you can get that from our website. And if you 

have trouble getting it, when you send me my 

email, I'll forward you a link or what have you to 

get you to the right place.

Mr. Hanlon: Yes. Obviously, I don't have a lot of 

time myself. I appreciate all of your efforts. I don't 

believe your models are correct. If you can review 

my testimony that I gave you when you were in 

Providence, Rhode Island, I think it was June of 

2018, I gave you some good information to work 

with. I could probably provide some more if I could 

at least find some of the workers. I have set up a 

Facebook page just for the TI maintenance and 

construction people. 

I will say this, one of the reasons why I think your 

models are wrong is on average, every day was 

spent on ladders or lifts. And so we're always 

moving dust. We're always putting hangers up, 

putting hangers down, dislodging dust constantly. 

We jackhammer in the floors. We used saws that 

went in the floors. We dug up with shovels. I used 

to be the training facilitator for facilities and I left 

around 2001 from Texas Instruments. But I have a 

good rapport with most of the guys, I understand, 

but we never knew it all, period. And I tried to share 

with them all of OSHA's requirements as part of 

training, but we never were aware at all at any time 

that there was nuclear anything anywhere, including 

down in Building 1. What is that, the thorium down 

there, 1 and 2, that was encapsulated in the floor?

Ms. Gogliotti: We're not aware of that, if that is 

true, at least I'm not. I haven't heard of it being in 

Building 1 and 2.
87

Mr. Hanlon: Okay, well I might have the wrong --

what's the material they used to paint on watches, 

watch dials, and stuff?

Ms. Gogliotti: I think that was --

Mr. Hanlon: Which material is that?

Ms. Gogliotti: -- four or five, the radium, wasn't it?

Mr. Hanlon: What was it?

Ms. Gogliotti: Radium?

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Ms. Gogliotti: Oh, okay, it was Building 1.

Mr. Hanlon: But, you know, we would spend at least 

six to eight hours up in the ceilings, and if 

somebody was cutting and bending a pipe down or 

if we're working by ourselves, that's what we do. 

We're using the ceiling constantly, putting holes, 

sticking our heads up and wedging them between 

pipes just to get an eyeball so we could see a little 

bit. 

We're breathing in that dust, we seldom wore a 

mask up there, so we're always moving in dust. And 

I did have a catastrophic release of dust. I explained 

during my testimony back in June of 2018 that I 

was putting up new lighting, track lighting, and I 

wasn't aware of the nuclear anything. And I cut 

down the old fluorescent lighting with bolts, a bolt 

cutter, and that just had a catastrophic release of all 

the dust. I mean there must have been in some 

cases two or three inches of dust on top of a lot of 

the old fixtures, but it was just released, it went into 

the building and all over the place.

I don't want to re-testify right now, but those are 

the comments. I would ask you to -- I know you 

want to move and close out things, but I don't think 

you have your modeling right, so I wouldn't 

recommend, in my opinion, that you close anything 

out at this point.
88

Dr. Mauro: This is John. Just to help out a little bit, 

in the road map report that only came out on March 

12th, we do have an Appendix, okay? It's called 

Appendix B and it says issues raised by petitioners 

during the May 3, 2018 Work Group meeting. 

Certainly, if -- that's basically a summary of the 

issues and discussions pertaining to those issues.

Darrell, the quickest way for you to get into this 

literature, which is vast, is take a look at Appendix 

B to see did we get it right in Appendix B and that is 

available. And of course, you can take it from there 

because behind Appendix B is reference to a whole 

bunch of correspondence and transcripts and stuff 

like that.

Mr. Hanlon: And is the website also on there?

Mr. Katz: Darrell, when you send in your contact 

information to Mike, I will send you back a link both 

so you can see just the report that John's talking 

about, John Mauro is talking about, as well as the 

interviews that have been done and you can get to 

all that material that way.

Mr. Hanlon: Okay, and I'm sorry, and your name is?

Mr. Katz: I'm Ted Katz and I'm the Designated 

Federal Official for the Advisory Board. But Mike is 

going to send in your contact information. I'll get 

that.

Mr. Hanlon: Okay, great.

Mr. Katz: I will respond to that with what you need.

Mr. Hanlon: Alright, thank you. I have no need to

hold you up any longer. I have to go myself, so I 

want to thank you all for all the effort you've put in 

so far.

Mr. Katz: Right, Darrell, we appreciate you 

attending. Thank you very much.
89

Path Forward/August Board Meeting 

Presentation/Plans

Chair Beach: Thanks, Darrell.

So are we ready for Path Forward? I know we have 

the EPA study coming out from John, correct?

Dr. Mauro: We're going to forward -- I got action 

items here. And the only one I wrote down is send 

the dust loading data, the basis, and the literature 

that stands behind our 200 micrograms per cubic 

meter value. And we will do that. That's the only 

action item I have.

Chair Beach: Okay, and that's going to the whole 

Work Group and then NIOSH is taking on -- Bomber 

is going to do the AWE sites, the three that -- the 

special -- okay, you're going to send out a memo or 

some type of report on that?

Mr. Rutherford: Yes, what I'll do is I'll take those 

sites that we've added periods to the SEC that are 

in the residual period and I'll lay out the reasons for 

the recommendations to add those classes.

Chair Beach: Okay. And that's something the Work 

Group Members can do, too. They can go in and 

look at those now that you know the three named. 

And it's in SC&A's earliest report, I believe, it 

highlights that also. So I mean if you want to start 

doing some research, waiting for LaVon. I mean 

that's certainly available.

And then, Ted, can we schedule another Work 

Group meeting from now?

Mr. Katz: So we could, except that the big question 

mark is we don't know when Bob will be back on his 

feet. And I think if he ends up back on his feet 

sooner than later, it may -- I think it would be 

better to be able to incorporate what he brings to 

the table, too, and be able to capture that in the 

next meeting. So you may want to just wait a bit 

and see how that comes and schedule it sort of in 
90

the June time frame I would think.

Chair Beach: Okay.

Mr. Katz: There's only four of you to schedule 

together. It shouldn't be that hard to get you 

together.

Chair Beach: How long do we have you, Ted?

Mr. Katz: You only have me until the very beginning 

of June.

Chair Beach: Very beginning of June, so our next 

call -- is your replacement on the line today?

Mr. Katz: Sure, I should have given you -- but no. 

My replacement, I misled you unintentionally. Your 

replacement -- well, I've been training her. She's 

been training and learning about the program and 

so on, but there was a little snafu because security 

requirements for this program for my position are a 

harder nut to crack than they were when I came 

into it. 

And so she's been hung up for a while, but she will 

be onboard at the end of this month. And so she'll 

be reaching out to all of you at the end of this 

month and so you'll get her sooner and then she'll 

definitely be onboard well before your June meeting 

teleconference.

Ms. Adams: Ted, this is Nancy. Dr. Howard sent out 

the announcement just a little bit ago about the 

selection.

Mr. Katz: Okay, that's great.

Member Kotelchuck: We didn't get it. It came out 

during this call.

Ms. Adams: Right.

Mr. Katz: It's not official yet, so --

Ms. Adams: The 27th of April.
91

Mr. Katz: Yes, the 27th of April which I don't believe 

we're there yet.

Ms. Adams: No.

Mr. Katz: It's April 13th, so --

Chair Beach: I was hoping you'd hang on so you 

could see us one last time in August.

Member Valerio: Yes, Ted, why don't you postpone 

your retirement.

Chair Beach: Yes, Ted, at least make one more 

meeting.

Member Anderson: Even if you're retired, you can 

come to the meeting.

Mr. Katz: Well, the meeting is probably going to be 

in Idaho. I do like Idaho.

Member Anderson: Okay, we'll --

Chair Beach: See you in Idaho.

Member Anderson: Get your travel tickets now 

before you retire.

Mr. Katz: Yes, it's really inexpensive right now.

Chair Beach: Yes. Okay, anyway, enough of 

badgering poor Ted. Anything else for the -- Ted will 

send out something for a Work Group call and -- are 

we okay? Anything else?

Mr. Katz: I think we're good. I think we're good.

Chair Beach: I need to say a special --

Mr. Katz: Josie, we just lost you. Josie? Josie? 

Hello?

Member Kotelchuck: I'm here.

Mr. Katz: Can you hear Josie or is it just me?

Member Kotelchuck: No, I can't hear Josie.
92

Member Valerio: I can't hear Josie.

Adjourn

Mr. Katz: Josie, you wanted to say something 

special for something, but we lost you. I don't think 

she realizes she's been cut off. 

Alright. Well, then I'll adjourn for Josie, without her 

special remarks. But thank you all and I hope you 

all stay safe and some of you, I think, will join me 

or maybe none of you -- actually, none of you are 

on the Work Group tomorrow. But take care. And, 

again, you'll get word of my replacement soon. 

Okay, bye-bye.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the 

record at 2:06 p.m.)